the altered destiny of small rocks and other gentle creatures

I sat on the balcony and I hoped I would see you.

I knew it was this time every evening you walked to the park by my house at dusk to your favourite spot. Where you would lay in the grass and invent new names for trees.

While I waited I discovered a small black and red insect crawling through the hairs on my arm.

It seemed harmless but I could think of more natural places for it to live so I gently took hold of it and placed it on the railing of the balcony.

Suddenly being removed from one world to another without any will of its own was a startling moment of liberation for the tiny black and red insect.

It promptly re-invented itself as an insect neo-folk singer and vibrated its tiny insect wings in a way that sent vibrations of personal and political frustration through the air audible only to other insects (more so to other insect lovers of folk music.)

This moment of altered destiny reminded me of when I was a child visiting my local bayside beach. While wading through the shallow tranquil waters I would often reach down and pick up small rocks from the sandy floor. I would stare at these rocks and consider the fact that before I had come along they had probably occupied almost exactly that same position for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. With one fling of my tiny hands these rocks would land with a splash in an entirely different world. And all I could think of at the time was how incredibly relieved the rocks would feel to finally have a different view every day.

I sat on the balcony a little while longer staring at the re-invented folk singing insect and then gently blew it over the edge where it plummeted into the front garden below and an entirely different world to the one it had just occupied, hence beginning its new career as an underground hip hop artist.

I never saw you walk by that evening and I’m thinking now maybe you don’t come this way anymore.

Maybe something has thrown you into another world.