The Oarsman

by Zubin Mathai

The soldier and beetle ran from the tunnel opening and through the dry dustiness towards a cluster of bushes ahead of them. They did not know that hundreds of feet south of them, a soldier was riding on the back of a butterfly and starting to smile.

  The pair made it to the protection of one bush and stopped to collect themselves. The beetle still wasn’t sure what they were running from, and when he asked the worker, the worker didn’t respond. She only darted her head left and right, thinking any little movement was danger. A breeze moving a bush looked like eight legs running. A shadow at play with the ground looked like a circle of eyes staring.

  The tunnel had danger lurking in its darkness, but now this open space had dangers all around, even with the sun baring down with only light. As minutes rushed by, and no threat could be seen from any direction, the beetle began offering plans.

  He mused if they should return to the tunnels, to the exit near the rocky outcrop so they could look for their friends again, but the worker refused with a silent head shake. The beetle looked up at the sun and measured its angle with his legs and a squinted eye. He said he is sure they were standing northeast from the rocky outcrop, and that they could head slightly south to wait there. If their friends were not buried in the collapsed canyon, and if they continued to head east, the beetle would be able to pick up their track there.

  The worker had no objection to that plan, and so they set off.

  They marched through the afternoon, as the sun replaced yellows with oranges and lengthened shadows, and into the evening, when the braver stars began appearing. As they trekked through plains of sand and clusters of bushes and tumbleweeds, the worker kept mostly quiet. She was following the beetle, sometimes helping him when his leg hurt, but she was mainly lost in worry. This was the longest she had never seen her friend, the soldier, and the only time in her short life she had ever been homeless.

  She looked to a shadowed collection of tumbleweeds just as the wind grabbed one, sending it tumbling away into the darkness on its own.

  A howl was carried in from the distance, a piercing cry that seemed to scare the stars into dimming a shade, and so she moved closer to the beetle. When the howl came again, she nestled too much and stepped on the beetle’s broken leg, and he added his own howl to the night air.

  “Please walk on my other side,” said the beetle, rubbing his leg with a few of his others.

  The moon came out, rising tenderly, and it seemed so comforting to the worker. Its silver light, not as harsh as the yellows of the sun, reached down gently, allowing the worker’s eyes to blur into a waking slumber. She pictured herself on the moon, surrounded by a silvery dust floating down in slow-motion. She ran and jumped, and could jump so high up there, while a blanket of soothing silence came to wrap her. Stars seemed brighter up there, and they shone down to show her the way.

  When the worker came back to the moment and told the beetle what she was daydreaming about, the beetle chuckled, patting her on her head and telling her she had such a fanciful imagination.

  At one point on their march, as the sky continued to fade and shapes turned to outlines and then shadows, the worker stepped near a dark spot and heard a hissing and rattling. She wasn’t sure what those vibrating sounds were, so she only froze. The beetle, on the other hand, wise in his ways, knew the danger exactly. He grabbed the ant and pulled her back, and then ran a few steps with her to the left, until the rattling could no longer be heard.

  When they were in the clear, the beetle brought the ant close to his eyes to look her over, making sure she was okay. He ran his legs over her head and back, making sure there were no injuries, and when he was satisfied, he gave her a pat on her head and resumed the march.

  The worker felt soothed by this wise beetle’s kindness, and she could not help contrast it to her friend, the soldier’s, ways.

  “Beetle,” said the worker, “my soldier friend is like you, always looking after me. I am too easily lost in dreams — or just plain lost — and I know I often need looking after. But when the soldier saves me from something, she is always stern and silent, never really cracking a smile or any tenderness.”

  “Well,” started the beetle, as he rolled a tiny pebble out of the way so that the worker would not trip over it, “in the lessons I have gained from nature, from wandering these lands alone or with kin, I have learned that friends don’t always have to be friendly to have a place in your heart.”

  A blur of pink faded in up ahead and above, and the worker took off running. The beetle wasn’t even sure if she heard his last sentence, for she bolted without even a word. He ran to try and keep up, but his broken leg would have none of that. He switched to limping along, calling out for the worker to wait for him, when all of a sudden he collided right into the back of the stopped ant.

  The worker was staring with wide eyes, trembling at seeing something unknown, and she moved herself behind the beetle so she could peek out from safety. The moon was lighting up a cluster of cacti, and on some were pink flowers shouting out to be seen. Their colors were a splash of life in all the darkened grays and browns, but there was something else stealing the worker’s attention.

  On top of a close by cacti, precariously balanced with tiny paws to avoid the needles, stood a small coyote pup. It was focused on the cactus’ flower, balancing on three legs while gently swatting at the flower to get it to fall. All of a sudden, it stopped what it was doing and threw its head back to howl at the moon. It let out a tiny howl, one a bit too high-pitched, but to the ant it was deafening, vibrating through her body like an earthquake.

  “Oh, my little friend,” said the beetle, “don’t worry. That is a coyote.”

  “An animal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do they eat bugs like us?”

  “No,” said the beetle with a chuckle. “At worst they might step on us if we are not careful, but we get back at them by tickling their noses if they try to sniff us.”

  The coyote thought he heard some murmuring from the ground and paused his howling to look. His eyes were almost as good at night as during the day, so he had no problem picking out the two shiny shapes on the ground.

  “Hello there,” said the coyote, and the vibrations of his giant voice made the worker duck further down behind the beetle.

  The beetle nodded a hello to the coyote and brought the worker out from behind him, but all she offered was a timid little nod before darting back.

  “If you are trying to get that flower,” said the beetle to the coyote, “might I suggest using one paw to carefully press down the needles on one side and then swatting the flower up from underneath it.”

  The coyote tried what the beetle said and the flower tumbled down to land upright on the ground and catch a shimmer of moonlight. The coyote jumped down to pick it up in its mouth and then walked over to the beetle and ant.

  “Thank you little strangers,” said the coyote, and as he approached the worker started to calm. Even though a giant, this animal’s ears and eyes seemed too big for its size, and its paws were a bit too floppy to be scary. It had a smile on its face, and the worker recognized it as a smile of youth and curiosity, something she often carried, even though she was no longer young.

  “Do you mind pulling this out?” asked the coyote, as he flopped down to the ground and held up a paw. There was a lone cactus needle embedded.

  “My friend here is strong,” said the beetle.

  The worker stepped forward, still a little cautious, but when given a task she always able to replace fear with focus. She looked at the needle, it’s angle and depth into the coyote’s skin, and knew exactly how to grab it. With barely any resistance the needle came out and the pup was happy. He ran around — careful not to step on the two new friends — and howled and yelped at the moon. When he tired of his celebration, he came back and lay down once more in the sand.

  “Thank you!” yelled out the coyote in an excited flurry of breath, and then it picked up the pink flower, holding it off to one side of it
s mouth so it could speak out of the other.

  “My mom always gets so angry when I sneak out at night on my own — but this land is so fun and interesting, especially when the moon is out in full. I just can’t help it. I love running around out here.”

  Noticing the worker staring at the flower, the coyote addressed her, “You like this flower, little one?”

  Finally the worker was calm enough to speak up. “It is beautiful,” she said, mesmerized by the petals, even as few vibrated in a faint breeze.

  “I think if I give it to my mom, she won’t yell at me too much when I get back,” said the coyote.

  Still noticing the worker staring, the coyote inched forward on his tummy, and in the most gentle of way for such a large beast, moved his head so that the edge of the flower could brush against the worker.

  Feeling the delicate petal against her cheek, and seeing the pink flow in to take up her entire view, made the worker giggle. Soon the giggle turned into a laugh, and she rolled over to her back to kick up legs to join in.

  “I’ve never seen an ant so happy,” said the coyote. “Never saw one so interested in a flower either, except when trying to eat one. I like you. I think if you were a coyote, you’d be like me, disobeying your mom for a chance to run around any play under the moon.”

  “I’ve danced and jumped around on the moon itself,” giggled out the worker.

  The beetle tapped on the ant’s head to get her to calm down. “Forgive my friend here, coyote, she has a wonderful imagination.”

  “It might’ve been a daydream,” said the worker defensively, “but it was also still true! I saw those stars, that line of three close together up there, and they were even brighter on the moon, like they were close enough to touch.”

  The coyote giggled at the squeaking defiance in the tiny ant. He brushed the flower gently against her head again, and laughed as a giant echo to the little one’s.

  “I’m so sorry,” said the coyote, “I wish I could stay here forever with you two, but I do have to get back. I’ve already been gone a few hours. My mom will be really mad,” the coyote turned and took a few steps away and then froze. It dropped the flower from its mouth and turned to face the bugs.

  “Wait a minute,” said the coyote, “how can you make out those individual stars? Insects can’t see like that?”

  “As I mentioned,” said the beetle apologetically, “my little friend has a big imagination.”

  The coyote asked the worker to describe the shape of the stars in a section of the sky, and the worker was able to do it perfectly. The coyote then asked her to count the crisp boulder outlines on a faraway ridge, and she returned the exact number, even mentioning the two tiny formations the coyote had to squint to see.

  “I’ve played with insects before,” said the coyote, “I’ve run up behind them, or come in from the side, and I know they don’t see like animals. They just see fuzzy shapes and movement.”

  “That is what I see when I blur my eyes for a daydream,” said the worker. “but normally everything is nice and sharp.”

  “Hmm,” said the coyote as he picked up the flower again, “this changes everything.”

  He looked to the cacti, to the ones which held flowers at their peaks, and then turned to the little worker. “I think when I come back this way I may have to grab another flower for my mom. She’ll be mad when I get back even later, but I have to show you two something.”

  “What about that?” asked the coyote as they walked, pointing with his snout into the distance.

  “That is a bush,” said the worker.

  The coyote smiled and nodded, then moved the flower in his mouth to the other side. He never met any insect like this ant, one that could see as clearly at night as he.

  “Where I’m taking you is the place to be during the full moon,” said the coyote. “And for one who can see like you, it will definitely be a treat-”

  Two beams of light cut into the coyote’s sentence and the night air, sweeping back and forth like searchlights. The coyote immediately fell to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust that made the beetle and ant cough. When the dust settled, the worker strained her eyes to search for the source of the light. She traced the beams back down to their brightest points and saw two of the two-legged animals. These ones were smaller than the one she saw at the sea of flat stones, or those at the fire in the forest.

  “Humans,” said the coyote in a whisper, “Young ones. Boys.”

  “So?” said the beetle. “I’ve walked close to such creatures. They’ve never caused me any trouble.”

  “Well,” said the coyote, still trying to keep as still as possible, “for insects it is different. You are hard to see. But for animals like me… when I was younger, my mom would tuck in me in for the night and tell me so many scary stories about humans.”

  The beams of light swung wide, chasing away shadows along the ground and turning pebbles and bushes back to washed-out versions of their daytime selves. The boys laughed and chatted, running along and chasing tiny things the trio could not see, and the ant could feel the vibrations of their run through her body. One of the beams infused something shiny on the ground, and a silhouette from inside it caught the worker’s eye.

  She did not know the name for the container, that it was a glass jar, but she recognized the shape inside. Those eight eyes and legs were familiar, and she knew it was the tarantula she had recently met. Back then it was trapped in crumbling tunnels, and here it was trapped in something transparent and beautiful, and yet which — with the two boys lording over it — seemed more solid.

  When the boys moved off, continuing to shine their lights along the ground looking for more things to catch, the coyote stood up and was ready to lead the beetle and ant in the other direction. The worker could only stare at the imprisoned tarantula, how its head was low and legs rubbing frictionlessly and desperately against the glass.

  “I don’t know how, but we have to save that spider.”

  The beetle and coyote stopped, and the coyote even dropped the pink flower from his mouth.

  The worker looked to her friend, the beetle, and knew his wisdom would be easy to convince, but when she looked to her new friend, the coyote, she was unsure. She blurred her eyes for a moment, going to the spot inside which dreamed up safe and sure ways, and began speaking.

  “Just like you howl up to the moon to shout out its beauty, and I can see the night stars and match each of their twinkles to my heartbeat, so too can I see that poor trapped spider’s preciousness. If we are able to do something, we should. How can we go on to enjoy this night, and each other’s company, knowing we abandoned another life?”

  The beetle and coyote looked to each and knew. They would have to do what the worker is asking.

  “We will distract the boys,” said the beetle. He walked over to the coyote and crawled up its leg, along its neck, and then parked himself on the coyote’s head next to its ear. At the tickling sensation, the coyote stifled a little giggle.

  “Just take my turn-by-turn directions,” said the beetle into the coyote’s ear, “and the boys will not catch us.” Then the beetle turned to the worker and spoke to her, “You go and free the trapped spider.”

  The beetle then yelled in the coyote’s ear to run, and the animal took off. The coyote ran straight towards the boys, and the worker could see their lights flick towards him. She could see the beetle yelling in the coyote’s ear, telling him to run around one bush, jump over a little dune, or duck behind a cactus. The boys were no match for the speed of the little pup, nor the cunning of the beetle holding on for his dear life.

  The worker ran to the bottle and tapped on the glass. The tarantula spun to face her, and its movement rocked the bottle to and fro. At first the spider’s eyes did not show recognition, and its head still hung low, but after a few seconds it drew up to its full height.

  “Ant friend?” it whispered, rubbing its eyes with four of its legs.

  “Yes,” said the worker,
as she looked at the bottle and surveyed the scene. A plan came to her, and it evicted the lingering fear at seeing the giant humans in the background chasing her friends.

  “Can you help me?” asked the spider. It brought its head close to the glass, and all the worker could see were its giant jaws. “I am so hungry, but I swear I did not eat any ants since I left that tunnel.”

  “I am going to rock this container you are in,” said the worker. “It is going to take all my strength. If I can rock it up over this mound, it might roll down and smash into that rock.”

  The spider licked the glass at exactly the spot where the worker stood, and the worker stopped looking around, and even paused her planning.

  “If I get you out, however,” said the worker, “you have to promise not to eat me.”

  “What?!” answered the spider incredulously. It crossed two of its legs in a huff and looked away. “Ants are my friends. I have never, ever eaten an ant, and I will not start today.”

  “I want you to promise,” said the worker. “Promise that you will run away from here as soon as I get you out.”

  The tarantula looked back at the worker, and its eyes and body drooped again. “But, don’t you want to be my friend? We can look for new homes together.”

  “Promise!”shouted the worker, and the spider, after sulking for a bit, reluctantly gave a tiny nod.

  The worker felt guilty at shouting so rudely, and so she added some softer words. “My friend just told me something. He said that sometimes the best friends are ones that aren’t always friendly, and that they will always have a special place in your heart.”

  It took all her strength, including reserves of strength she never knew she had, but the worker was able to begin rocking the jar back and forth. Even as the boys laughed and chased, as the beetle yelled and the coyote howled and ran, the worker built up a momentum. After minutes of grunting and trying, she managed to rock the bottle over a lip of sand. It rolled down, picking up speed, tumbling the tarantula round and round, and then shattered against a sharp rock at bottom.

  The worker ran over to check on the spider, and it righted itself and shook off bits of glass before standing up. As soon as the worker got near, the spider grabbed it and brought it up to her giant jaws for a lick.

  “I am so hungry,” said the spider plaintively. “But I swear I don’t want to eat ants.”

  “You promised!”said the worker, and with a fierceness coming from her voice, one that surprised even herself, the spider put her gently down and ran off into the night.

  As they approached their destination, the worker could begin to see the source of the strange vibrations she had been feeling for the last little while. There was a shape cutting a crisp outline against the moonlit sky, and it was immense. Its vibrations shook the ground, but they were not jarring, rather smooth and continuous, and intense enough to feel like mother earth itself was humming loudness to the moon.

  “This is where I come on full moon nights,” said the coyote.

  The worker could not stop staring. Before them was a wonder to her the size of a mountain. Triangular legs balanced a long and slim body rocking back and forth. A red head dipped down and up, and with each swing another of the earth’s hums whirred and whined. Even though the worker could sense that this giant oddity was not alive, she could not help picturing it as an ant. This giant kin dipped over and over again, and in the worker’s blurred imagination she saw it drinking the blackest, gooiest of nectar.

  It was not long before her staring was interrupted by a falling star. An amber point crossed the sky, streaking its light against the giant dipping ant. Soon another star fell, and then another, but these ones circled close enough to the giant that it seemed they were kissing it. Even the stars are so much in awe of this wonder of wonders, the worker thought, that they are falling from the heavens for a closer look.

  “Interesting,” murmured the beetle, and his voice fell off to be swallowed by the vibrations singing up from the earth. “I have never seen so many fireflies swarm in one spot.”

  “Yes, it is beautiful,” said the coyote. “Most nights I sneak off to play with other animals that can’t sleep, but on full moons I come to see the show of lights above this metal dancer.”

  The coyote looked to the worker, smiling at her wide-eyed wonder, and then motioned for her to follow. They stepped up closer to the triangular legs, and as they neared, the worker’s head angled further and further, until her neck was straining to keep her head pointing straight up. The real stars high above clapped their twinkling at the show, as the giant ant bowed repeatedly and hundreds of fireflies blanketed the whirring air.

  “Even though the front and back ends are swinging too fast to hold steady,” said the coyote, looking up in wonder just as the ant was, “I usually climb the center — it is less dizzying — and stand at the top to stare. Will you try it?”

  This worker was an ant afraid of all the unknown in these strange lands. She was sensitive enough to be hurt by the teasing of her former sisters, and timid enough to never even look her former queen in her big eyes. And yet here, with the help of the coyote’s soothing voice and the fireflies circling out of curiosity, she began climbing the metal giant.

  The vibrations filled her body and drove her legs to match its rhythm. Soon she was timing it that four sets of slow steps on her left side, then four sets on her right, and the whirring hums of the giant beast would repeat in sync. Her vision blurred and she pictured her steps tickling this giant ant, and suddenly the titan stopped to turn and look at its tiny kin. Climb my back and see the world, said the giant to the worker, and then it went back to dipping down for its nectar, laughing out its smooth hums at making a new friend.

  The higher the worker climbed, the more the fireflies swarmed, thickening and lighting up more of the metal beneath her feet. At top she stood for a moment to catch her breath, focusing at first on the soup of fireflies come to swirl around. She lifted a leg up to brush the tummies of the closest ones, and wondered if ever again in her life she would be close enough to the heavens to touch the stars.

  The fireflies in unison rose higher up, circling and dancing out their light, daring the stars above to do any better. The worker could now see clearly in all directions, and the vista came to snuff out any motion of mind. She could see dark shapes stretch out from the base of the giant ant, shapes like bushes, rocks, and gentle hills. Further out she could see boulders and mountains, and rare clusters of trees standing defiant against the dryness.

  Even further she could see a sea of lights of all colors, flickering red and green, strings of white, and even some moving in lines. For a moment she blurred her vision and knew that that was the world of the two-legged animals, the humans, as the coyote calls them. From up here their world seemed as tiny as ant worlds, and was not scary at all.

  She could not keep her vision blurred for too long, for this was the furthest and clearest she had ever been allowed to look. The stars defined the boundaries like protectors, while the mountains in the distance stood proudly to oversee the preciousness. The moon smiled, whispering to the ant that this is why it rises, to drip down silver sighs at the beauty that can be scooped up with every glance.

  From up here nothing at all was scary, even the unknown corners, for everything seemed like splices of an unspliceable whole. The worker held her breath and blurred her eyes, and prayed for a pink petal to fly in to make the scene even more complete. When she returned to the moment, there was a breeze coming to kiss her, but no pink flowers or whispers from anywhere.

  She wondered if she was on the right path, if she would ever find a home, or if even finding a new home was her destiny. To feel so lost, and yet, in this moment, not afraid, was the strangest feeling to the little ant. The fireflies, all in unison, felt the next out-breath of the universe give them a secret, and so they began swarming to the east, drawing the worker’s attention, before returning to their flow high above.

  To her right, a little wa
ys off, the worker saw a dark space, one with no outlines or light, and wondered what it was. Beyond she could see random lights and craggy collections of outlines she assumed were sparse forests. But what drew her eyes was the faintest dusting of color. She squeezed the muscles in her face to focus as much as she could, and soon the color defined itself: pink.

  It was faint and small, but she could see it, a pool of pink nestled in the darkness. It did not whisper, but yet was faintly calling by its presence, and now she knew exactly where she must head.

  Just then a piece of the moon seemed to split off and circle her a few times. A silver streak floated between all the amber of the fireflies, bouncing in the joy of its flight. The worker saw it was a butterfly, and she saw it float down, escorted by a happy sub-swarm of curious fireflies, and then saw it land at the base of the giant ant she stood on.

  When she saw her long-lost friend, the soldier, step from the back of the butterfly, the worker could not contain her excitement. She squealed and hopped to tickle the back of the giant, and then raced down its legs to the ground. She ran to the soldier, just as the butterfly was saying its hellos and goodbyes. The worker grabbed the soldier with the tightest hug her little legs could muster and swirled around in delight. The soldier’s eye and smile lit up, and she giggled a bit, but then immediately tamped it down, let go of her little friend, and straightened up.

  “It is good to see you, worker,” said the soldier as plainly as she could.

  twelve

  Danger