The Beetle
It has been long, so long, these days and hours and months and years and I still sit here, in my tattered slip among the stones, waiting and waiting and waiting while the night spins and the sun falls from the sky —
Oh, the beetle! Listen — he is coming — do you hear him? His little feet, ticking away as he creeps between the rocks. Soon he will be closer, and he will push through the cracks to this place where I am—
Oh, it has been so long, each and every second ticking into eternity like the footsteps of my beetle echoing between these stones, stretching as far as my ears can hear into the faint sigh of wind. She moans and whispers, and her voice trembles to reach me in this sheltered place —
My beetle comes, his fragile black legs poking out into the open air until he falls with a plop to the earth below, and slips toward my outstretched hand. My beetle comes, and brings me tidings.
We negotiated, he and I.
You brought me here with your sweet looks and your gentle fingers and your subtle words. With your two hands, you dug for me this house, promising forever with your pleading eyes and your warm lips and rough cheeks. My gown was for my wedding, littered with pearls collected from the time I was born. I wore it for you, proudly; through some miracle, I was arranged to be your bride.
We met here on the eve of our beginning. An exchange of gifts, a luxurious feast, poetry. You could not wait, you said. I was beautiful and wanted and ready. You needed me, you soothed. What did I know of these things? Only this smoldering want, bursting into sheets of flame. Only these tears of wanton desire. Why should I deny you? You sang to me of love —
You escaped on horseback while I slept, leaving me desolate, desecrated, abandoned, exposed for my brothers to find. My respectable family did as they must, filling in the spaces that you left behind.
The beetle found me. He was my comfort, tickling my ears with tales of your world in this life: the beautiful woman to whom you were betrothed; the shining ceremony, lit by blessings and love; the children she bore you.
My beetle, he told me. He tells me, still —
He told me of her death, this bride you loved; and he should know it — he fed her the poison. After she was buried, he brought you her ring, over and over again until you were mad with grief. He placed the burrs under your sons’ saddles, hissed endless nightmares into your daughters’ rooms. My loyal creature, he has made a mark for me, on your life: The dowry you stole has grown into a kingdom, but it has festered as I starved. Your zenith is marked and remarked with some inexplicable, malignant bloom.
He chitters to me that you are to marry again, while I am but a pile of rags and bones, mortared into some forgotten cell. It is time, he whispers.
It is time.
We have traded promises, over the years, my beetle and I. He lets me keep the pearl you left behind — a light for my darkness. Instead he gives me a story, first for this eye, then for that one. My pretty ears are bartered for wisdom. I gain information for the knuckles of my toes.
So many pieces of me, exchanged, for pieces of you.
And now, the greatest promise of all: his brothers flood the room behind him like a great, black tide. They set to work, polishing the drift of my forgotten bones. He brings me at last an army, my beetle. To tear your kingdom down.
I will not be without you, after all.
