Listen to the author reading this story:
Once upon a time there was a bug; black and dull. The bug had much time to think in the long summer as it toasted itself on miscellaneous rocks. The heat was a bounty for its overworked limbs; slip sliding as they did in autumn and turning to tiny icicles in winter.
The bug wondered about things.
The sun appeared to have the world sussed. It shone and shone and seemed to answer all questions, especially if one rolled over and exposed one’s vulnerable middle, stared into that glorious thing until there were sunspots over the eyes. But the sun always shone gently. How in heaven’s name was that possible when the sun was so many thousands of degrees and shone from so many million kilometres away? It was hard to fathom.
The sun was an imposter.
The bug felt a tightening in his abdomen. His antennae drooped. He rolled over and turned his back to the sun and then, for once, he was shiny, the sun showing its true face for an instant, searing him with ferocious citrus heat. The bug scuttled into the shade. Utterly untrustworthy.
For as long as the bug had sat, a multitude of questions had come upon him, rather like hail, not the soft dropping petal feeling of spring. He began to crawl through the long slightly moist grass pennants to the scorched earth beyond, above which the giant blossoms of roses hung far above his head like copycat suns but with no heat.
The questions were not all his.
Why is the sky blue?
Why can’t you ever reach a rainbow?
Why do some bugs die of hunger and others float on lily pads on the long ponds of country houses?
There were these questions and more but I do not have the space or time to outline all the rest and his thoughts were not always coherent, they were hexagonal shaped like the ommatidia of his eyes, like snowflakes.
Perhaps if you sit in the sun you will hear all the questions falling on you, as they did on him, and you will add this one. How does snow form? You will feel individual patches of cold spread out on your hair through the osmosis of water.
Or you may be hit in the head with the largest hailstone ever and ask ‘how big was that?’
The bug trundled along the ground, this mini beast with many co-ordinated legs so that he did not often turn in circles.
He met a horse, a calamity of a creature, cantering in a ubiquitous meadow with the requisite poppies. He thrust his head over the ramshackle fence and spied the bug who had climbed hurriedly up the stem of a rush - its chlorophyll filled spire encasing a spongey pith, once used by the poor to make rushlights.
‘Why?’ said the bug and ‘how?’ and ‘what’ and ‘where?’ and then: ‘who?’
‘Do you know the answers?’ he asked the horse.
‘Nay,’ said the horse which, to the bug, was the sound of a great hurricane. ‘But there was an old woman who swallowed...’
The bug waited but the horse said no more, so he travelled on.
He found a dog, log jammed in the opening of a door that was heavy and wooden. The dog raised his head, then let it drop down, his chin against rubble. He asked his questions of the dog but the dog fixed him with his mournful eyes and the bug felt a weight that could not physically be seen but pressed down on him anyway. ‘Woof,’ said the dog, which sounded like ‘enough.’
How was it that some creatures fed abundantly on road kill while Old Mother Hubbard could not provide for her dog? The sun beat down. And the sun always won when it came to fried bugs.
He came across a cat, feline, supine, of whom he asked a selection of his questions. The cat opened an eye, and then the bug wondered why those lights in the middle of the motorway had received that unusual name and who, in this wondrous monstrous world had made that designation? His questions were multiplying like ants. Not diminishing like the populations of bees. And why the fate of bees?
He asked the cat his questions and the cat with the sleepy cat’s eye replied. ‘I don’t really know.’ The sound was a screech and a stretch with a meow at the end and the cat went back to dreaming.
He met a bird. And he asked the bird his question. And the bird, being a crow, cocked his head to one side and appeared to ponder. And the bird being a crow was not content to talk one to one with this tiny creature without an audience for his wit, it flew away and began crowdsourcing.
‘Are you a fly?’ said the spider ‘Because there was an old woman who swallowed a....’
‘I’m not a fly,’ interrupted the bug, after which the spider appeared to become more relaxed.
‘Eight is an auspicious number,’ said the spider. ‘And the Magic Eight Ball will give you all the answers - I have one over here as a matter of fact,’ and he scuttled away. The bug was not a conversationalist but found it a relief to meet someone a little more forthcoming, he felt....satisfied.
The spider returned with the eight ball. ‘Now,’ he said ‘ask your questions again, phrasing them so that the Magic Eight Ball can answer in the positive or negative.’ The bug did as he was told. He asked his questions. Whether there was a meaning to life at all? Was the sky blue because it was the colour of sorrow? Would hunger ever end? Upon rotation the Magic Eight Ball gave up its answers.
It is decidedly so.
Reply hazy, try again, Better not to tell you now.
Signs point to yes.
Outlook not so good.
The reply is no.
The answers were haphazard and inconclusive, but the spider had been solicitous and helpful so the bug thanked him heartily and continued on.
As he travelled, the bug heard that there had been news of an old woman who swallowed a horse and was now dead. It turned out that she had been malnourished, had no relatives to care for her and had gone a little crazy. The rumours also rained cats and dogs instead of chicken in the kitchens of Chinese restaurants in the town but the bug was not convinced. There was, of course, a certain amount of sustenance in scandal. Newspapers were not always honourable although he found them quite reliable for shelter. There were tales of flies going about the ordinary business of life and being caught on yellow fly paper in domestic kitchens, dying a drawn out buzzy death. Being swallowed by a woman would, in comparison, have been a relief.
There was an old woman who swallowed a fly, I don’t know why she swallowed a fly, perhaps she’ll die.
The crowd sourcing crow reappeared. He enjoyed quiz shows, especially that one that had gone worldwide where you had to phone a friend or choose 50/50. His dream was to perch on a high rotating stool, basking in intellectual admiration and being handed a cheque by a man with a Northern English accent. With that kind of money, his life would make sense.
The bird looked at the bug. As a quizmaster he wasn’t what the crow had imagined. He felt a little peeved, a little empty. Hungry perhaps.
In the sun the bug became shiny. ‘What is this life about?’ asked the bug. ‘Why are there hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts, famines, ash clouds, harsh winters?’ The crow opened his beak. And swooped.
If you could hear him before he dissolved into the alimentary canal of the peckish crow you might have heard the bug cry out ‘Why do we die?’
It was the same age old question asked by the fly, the spider, the bird, the cat, the dog and the horse. And the answer in their case was that there was a half-starved woman, quite eccentric, who had lived too long alone and whose ovaries never provided her with the children who, in her dotage, may or may not have cherished and minded her and eventually - when nothing else could be done - found a reputable, affordable nursing home that would provide her with consistent compassionate care in her failing years.
And although in the bug’s case, death too became a question, it was in fact, the only thing that any of us can be sure about. In the meantime there will be infinite questions and kindnesses and a myriad of haphazard tragedies and miracles. I feel kindly towards you, I will give you some answers. I will tell you that snow forms from the dust of us. That the biggest hailstone so far was one kilogram but that, tragically, that particular hail storm killed many people.
And I will tell you that as I recounted to you this story, the sun shone on my hair and made it reflect its own image, so the sun is smug. And one day I will die and this story about the philosophical bug may be all you have left of me but for now the sun is on my face and I feel as if this moment will go on forever.
I smile now at that ridiculous sun for one day even it will die - the scientists surmise in 50 million years or so. But the sun smiles too, on the bugs, philosophical or not, for, before the sun dies it will swallow bugs, flies, birds, cats, dogs, horses, women and men, the Magic Eight Ball of the Earth itself and all its inconclusive answers.
Alison Wells hails from Kerry and Bray and is an enthusiastic public librarian. Pushcart prize nominated and Hennessy and Bridport shortlisted, she was an Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair finalist in 2020. Her writing has appeared in The Stinging Fly, The Lonely Crowd, Literary Orphans, Crannóg, UK National Flash Fiction anthologies, Skylight 47 and New Island/RTE Arena’s New Planet Cabaret. Her debut short story collection Random Acts of Optimism was published by Wordsonthestreet, Galway in 2023. Alison’s blog and classes explore creativity and resilience: https://alison-wells.com/
She is working on a flash fiction novel.