16.7.14

Hidden deaths

There's a dead wasp on the path. Ants swarming round, calling in reinforcements till they successfully begin to lift-drag it away.  I wonder if it died, fell and was then discovered, or if it was got injured and fluttering on the ground, got pounced upon by this army.

I realise I don't know how long wasps live, or how they die if fortunate to live their entire lifetime. Do they just stop breathing (how do they breathe)? Do they just stop and settle down somewhere, waiting as their vitality drains away? Or do they submit to the hive-mind, surrendering their bodies for the little nutritional value; one last task for the good of all? 

I look around, and I see butterflies and birds and little flies brought by the heat.  I see them everyday, and when they flit off, I dismiss them.  Show's over, see you again tomorrow.

But where do they go? Do you butterflies group together in a bush at night? Do flies have hives or nests? Are these the same ones I saw yesterday, or are those all just so much fodder by now?  And if they are mulch, did they topple over, or did they just stop and fall mid-air?

I keep thinking I've read all of this somewhere before, but I realise that I don't really know, and am merely trying to convince myself. And I realise that where once I would have rushed off to learn about such new things, today I insist that if I just spent enough time reflecting, all this information would be dredged up from whatever deep recess it had been stored in. 

I try not to even think about the fact that I haven't even thought about these things. Or why.

The thought of my curiousity dying scares me more thoroughly than the prospect of my own death.

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All the dead wasps I've ever seen have been curled up, like a newborn baby.  One position, two diametrically opposite stages of existence.

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So much to know. So much to known about what to know, what there is to know. 


3 comments:

The Bride said...

Ah the rabbit hole syndrome. Sometimes it's ok not to tumble into it.

??! said...

I know, men. But sometimes it's just not possible not to.

daily updates said...

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