Okay, I guess it was not one of his best days. He was probably embarrassed that I caught him fluttering about on that sunlit spring clearing in the forest. A very joyful sight, I thought. But there is always more to it than meets the eye. Anyway, I involuntarily smiled at him (who wouldn't do that in my place?), and he asked me to stop showing my (...) teeth at him.
Not quite the reaction you'd expect at that moment. I put on as mean a face as I could and asked what the problem was. Honestly, the guy made me curious. Here is his story.
Roger* grew up in a simple little neighborhood not far from where we met. He spent his childhood without knowing his parents, which is not unusual in families like his. Like many of his age and species, his life was more or less about the old materialistic things, food, leaves, shelter, and avoiding the attention of the birds. He was a caterpillar (or "maggot" as he put it) like any other and ate a lot. A normal child.
He grew quickly and with every shed of skin he went through he wondered more what to be in his life. He hung around with new people, got curious about other ways of life, and ate a lot. One day he heard a buzzing bombardier beetle and was totally overwhelmed. Up to that time, music had never seemed an option to him. Sometimes it was even a rather scaring thing to him, especially bird song. That buzzing beetle really opened a door to new worlds for Roger! Here was something he could do.
From that day, Roger did pretty much avoid his kind, who definitely frowned at his new interest in music and his new friends. The danger connected to music in general made the idea even more appealing to him. There was excitement. Adventure. A way to shock the boring crowd he came from. Roger started to wear carefully ragged clothing, acted rude, hung around with mean maggots and ate a lot. He wanted to grow to be a big, bad, punk rocking beetle. He also played the drums a lot, and with remarkable talent. Music was his life, and the more people hated it, the bigger was his motivation to do it. Like so many youngsters, Roger needed to rebel, and now he had found a way.
As time passed Roger and his friends (who were very much of the same age) felt that their childhood days would soon come to an end, and it was time to make the "transition", which would leave them hamstrung for quite a while, so they made an appointment: After all was over they would rejoin and form a band! That being said, they separated and did what had to be done to grow up.
At the meeting, Roger found that his old buddies, who had all grown up to be mean looking insects, didn't want him any more. His drumming was still excellent, but they seemed to be embarrassed at the idea of performing with him on stage. Apparently he didn't have "the looks". Roger tried to wear a mask on stage, but in the end they found another drummer, and Roger was left alone.
So every now and then, he joyfully flutters about on that sunlit clearing (it's his nature after all), and he hates it. If you meet him, make sure you wear a proper frown. It'll make his punk rocking heart happy.
*name changed by the deer
 |
| he was almost in the band. |
