Earwig
This was originally posted as an introduction on Animal Quills.
I wanted to write something for Animal Quills, something that could be easily read and understood, referenced to and queried about. Everything I write on myself, and how it is to be an earwig, however, comes out twisted up and chaotic. It's a play of words, senses, memories, and two-second-thoughts that I'll never recall again. It is me, but it may not be particularly easy to read. It brims with information, but it's under lock and key of a labyrinth of starts and stops. I can't help it. Insect.
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I move my arm forward and back in my socket, feel the chitin slide with a delicate precision over joints and plates. I rope my antennae through the palms of my hands, then run them along the things around me- the wall here, the storage bin there- this feels like copper, that smells like plastic and human hair. My eyes do not move, they stare nowhere and everywhere, with so many facets around me, there is no reason to focus on one thing at a time.
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I am not beautiful to you.
You would not want to see me.
I don't want you to see me.
I want to scare you.
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When I am out in public, I walk with a loping, limby gait. I lift my head and open my mandibles at people. Something in them bristles. Sometimes they move away. Sometimes they investigate closer. It's the latter who begin to discover I'm not very dangerous. Instead they find that I am timid, that I will dart from them, cerci (my big butt pincers!) closed so I can squeeze into the smallest passage possible, whether that is metaphorical, or pressing myself against the wall or window I'm standing or sitting by.
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I don't move my face much if I don't focus on it. I feel no need. I assume people know what I am saying, without saying it.
Antennae moving, quivering. See how I'm touching you, tentatively? No, of course not. Don't come nearer, please. Please. Pay me no mind and keep talking about your job. I will explore the contours of this crumpled napkin, in the meanwhile.
I am fascinated by it, and they make a joke at my expense. I prod it gently with my clumsy thick fingers. I turn it this way and that. I don't notice everyone watching me, because I don't need to.
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I am mahogany brown, I am dark cherry red. I am burnt umber and polished pine. I am soft breeze and crunching leaves. I am calm in the dark, in the warmth, in the bundle of blankets or squeezed down between the wall and the mattress. Pull off that rotting bark and I'll be huddled underneath. Touch me and I will run.