The Smell of Attraction

They hatched very far apart. Too far really. Making any chance of connection quite impossible, maybe. She took her first breath in a modest ravine hugged by an aspen organism and a few adolescent pines. The first sunbeams hit his eyes on a rocky, grassy ledge underneath a wise pine who loved to watch the little tent caterpillars hatch and gather to build their little solar tents. 

Some will claim the events of this story are all chance or happenstance with no meaning at all. Others will claim fate’s fingertips cover these proceedings or maybe some will point their own fingertip heaven word and give credit to the Gods. If you get quiet and still you may be lucky enough to hear the wind whisper the truth.

For some reason, he was born with a deep desire to see over the edge. All his siblings inched towards the nearest bush, he was drawn in the opposite direction. His insides pulled him to the edge to see this vast world he recently burst into. His little system felt its first surge of something deep and old at the sight of the vastness. 

The wind noticed the internal whispers of the new being and decided to play. With a slight “Woosh” the wind carried the tiny caterpillar far from everything familiar, out and down into a modest ravine.  

The wild bush with yellow flowers witnessed the wind’s playful push. Watching the little caterpillar fall through space, the bush reached a velvety leaf and lightly caught the little caterpillar lightly like an astute child winning an egg tossing competition. 

The little caterpillar didn’t awake abruptly and with fear, but was caressed towards consciousness by the soft, micro-brissles of the leaf and pulled to wakefulness by a tantalizing smell of lavender flowers and a freshly peeled orange tickling his insides. He took a deep breath and decided to allow the scent, carried lightly in the mountain breeze, to guide him over the stem of the leaf and up the tallest branch of the bush that did the catching. Each delicious sniff pumping life into his many little legs. 

As he neared the top of the branch, the aroma moved from directing his legs to focusing his eyes. Captured in his new sight was a female caterpillar. He seemed to melt as he watched her direct the building of a webbed home for her and many others of their kind. 

Her colors seemed to blind his eyes compared to the colors of her companions; blue like the caribbean sea and orange like a peach ripened by the sun. The white spots on her back twinkled in the shape of stars rather than the usual snowman shape. The hairs circling her cylindrical body seemed to wave the newcomer forward. All other caterpillars of the group gave the new guy the side eye or outright scowled, she, the bright leader, simply showed him how to spin his web and proceeded to laugh heartily at his fumblings and stumblings. 

He started to find a rhythm with the web as the group finished their thermo spun home. Together, the leader and the new guy, finished the top to a point, bumping heads and laughing together; their laughter feeling the space below. The elongated diamond shape abode, sitting atop the highest branch pointing to the starry sky. 

He followed the rest into their home and was surprised at the warmth held by the spun walls. As he closed his eyes, his insides started to dance as they caught the scent that had led him to this place. He lifted his head to catch a smile from the bright female across the space. Sleep closed his eyes as hopeful imaginations for the next day danced in his mind. 

As the sun’s rays climbed over the eastern peaks, the group of sleepy caterpillars moved as one in their cylindrical home to stay in the morning light. He was pleased to be in the middle and not on the outside of the group. As their little bodies filled with enough warmth, the group found their way to the outside of the webbing. 

The bright leader began to crawl off the webbing and down to another branch connecting to a tree looking to have scrumptious leaves. Her scent continued to call to him to follow. 

He caught up to her, the words leading from his mouth, “How do you smell sooo good?”

She giggled, “I don’t know. I just want my siblings to be able to follow me to food.”

“Oh wow, I don’t think I need food because I could just eat you.” The words seemed to slip from his mouth

She paused and looked back at him, eyes a little wider.

“Sorry, I don’t mean literally. Your smell seems to cloud my thinking. Your smell led me to your group after the wind swept me from my group.” He explained

She giggled as she turned to crawl onto a leaf and began munching. “Yum! Try it!” 

“Wow,” he explained with a full mouth. “You are a good food finder! And a good builder! And a good teacher! And a….”

“Okay, calm down and eat.” Her eyes shimmered while the hair on her body seemed to dance. 

“Hey, where are you going?” He asked “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I am telling the others to follow the trail” She yelled back as she climbed high enough to see the group.

His eyes widened slightly as he watched her pull the top half of her body off the branch and start to dance; her body moving this way and that, like a young tree in a circling wind. His jaw dropped, a clump of chewed leaf falling out, as the vibrant colors on her body sparkled in the sunlight.

“I must be the luckiest caterpillar!” he stated out loud to himself and the tree he ate upon. The teeth marked leaf shook in agreement. 

The little group of caterpillars slept and ate and grew fat together. The old tree who shared leaves and gave some shade from the warming sun believed they were the fattest and most content group of tent caterpillars witnessed in many years. 

This life isn’t perfect and terrible things often take place. The bright leader had led her little group higher in the tree this day. They sat upon a branch full of tasty leaves and a little more exposed at this height. A shadow flashed and he, the outsider, shouted “ouch!” The leader raised her head and captured the outline of a bird turning mid air in her sight. “Run!” she shouted at her little group. 

The screams of one of their own could be heard as the bird sat on a branch just above the little group and chomped greedily. “It is flying again! Keep going! Get to the underside of that branch against the trunk!”

The outsider sat frozen with thoughts of losing her. He could feel a warm liquid running down his face from the gash given to him moments before. He knew what needed to be done. Just like his first moments after hatching, he moved away from the group, out to the furthest, most exposed leaf and started to dance and wiggle, like a worm wiggling to the surface in a rain storm. Just before the bird’s beak clamped around his head, he allowed gravity to pull his fat, little body down. The bird only ate one snack from the group that day. 

The outsider was no longer an outsider to the little group, he had given them enough time to find safety and they were filled with gratitude. But they did not know if he was in pieces inside a bird’s stomach or safe and hiding. He was actually clinging to the underside of the leaf. He wanted to allow the sun to dip before he crawled into the open again. As he crawled towards the little group, a gasp met his ears as she spotted him. She hurriedly crawled out to meet him with fire in her eyes. 

Smack! “Ouch!” She threw her pronounced back side directly into his injured face. 

“Don’t ever do that again!” The fire in her eyes, and her breath softening. “Thank you.” Her eyes glistened like the star designs on her back. 

The group was somber as they inched back to their spun home in the dark without the one eaten member. That night, as everyone found sleep, she covered his wound with her webbing. 

As spring moved to summer, the nights continued to decrease. The shorter nights paralleled the group’s desire to drag their fat little bodies anywhere; all of their efforts were spent identifying an ideal spot for cocooning. With a spot claimed, the leader and the adopted one sat beneath the stars for the last time before their metamorphosis. 

“I am so pumped to wake up with you and fly together!” He practically floated off their webbed home and onto the edge of the closest leaf. 

She giggled. Each white star on her back blushing a little hint of rose. “Me too.” A hint of lavender and citrus in her voice. “Come back, you know you can’t touch the stars and I hate when you get so close to the edge.”

“I love the edge and I want to get a star for you.” He smiled and reached three-fourths of his body out and up as high as he could reach. 

The night’s wind took notice of love between two beings and decided to celebrate with a sudden updraft. WOOSH! He held onto the sound of her scream as the wind spun him upward to land under the old pine he was born under. 

Neither could sleep and so each decided to build their cocoon to try and shut out the sadness and loss; each spun with webbing and tears and questions. Would they find one another? Would they even remember? Each sealed their cocoon with a promise to remember. He would give every wing beat to remember and find her again. 

Summer was born hot, heavy, and stagnant as if the breeze had also built a cocoon for a break. Even the nights struggled to cool. This July morning was different. The wind seemed to break its bounds and carry in some cooling balm. The cool wind surfing the peaks and ravines searching, waiting for her to break out of her cocoon. At the first tear of her cocoon, the crisp, piercing wind swooped in to carry the appealing scent higher and higher. 

He had pulled himself from the salty cocoon several days before the cold wind woke. His wings did work; he had hovered briefly and he was going to take off into this new world, but something had grounded him and whispered “stay.” This did not make sense, all of his instincts yelling at him to fly and find food. Everything else, the trees and the grasses and the very ground seemed to be encouraging him to just wait. He listened. Eyes closed. Wings still. Trying to remember. 

He didn’t remember the wind in this form, frigid and alive. He likes it! It called to his wings. The wind started to swirl and laugh. A spark of another life lighting up within. Edges and falling and awe. His bipectinate started to activate. The wind laughed and teased his activated antenna with the scent of lavender flowers and a newly opened orange peel. A sudden flash of remembering; like a lightning strike awakening a soul.

His eyes opened. His wings burst him away from the ground and into freedom. A flash. A Remembering. Racing the wind to the ravine. Laughter and life and the fluttering of wings filling the mountain’s ravine!