That's when she said she was pretending / Like she knew the plan
That's when I knew she was pretending / Pretending to understand
'The thing is', Stone said, 'that if you don't believe that you are an old man, or a woman, or a tramp, then how can you expect anyone else to believe you? Looking the part is just the surface; being the part is the true disguise.'
Lane, Andy. (2012). Fire Storm. Macmillan.
__________
I will return to my home, the new Jacob said in a dull, flat monotone.
Wait! shrieked the old Jacob.
But it was too late: the gargantuan human moved too swiftly for a tiny ladybug to keep up with, and Jacob found himself watching in horror as his former body went inside and slammed shut the door.
I don't want to be a ladybug! screamed Jacob.
Either no one heard or no one cared, for there came no reply.
⁂
Inside the house, the erstwhile ladybug was relishing the intrinsic sensory delights of possessing a human body. The massive, wet orbs she now had as eyes registered a continual stream of kaleidoscopic colors: a prismatic, perspectival array of subtle hues that richly tinted the deep, three-dimensional landscape around her. Sounds were different now, too. The softly, muted tones of the garden outside had been a bit harder to register with these hairy, pink shell-like ears flanking either side of her head. But the weird organs were quite good at discriminating pitches along a whole spectrum of sound the ladybug had never even suspected existed. She'd heard these sounds before, but never (until now) actually noticed or appreciated the harmonics, the modulation, the individually distinct tones that composed a whole world of what was once mere sound vibrations to her: little more than loud/soft, high/low, near/far. Now she could hear a whole symphony of noises in the dimensions within those categories, betwixt and between.
The smells were horrid, though. And Jacob missed her old antennae badly. Humans seemed to have poor senses of smell, detecting odors in an almost accidental manner it was just a byproduct of their respiration. She could only sniff things out by inhaling, and the scents she detected were mostly the noisome, malodorous stinks of mammals. Jacob missed the sweet scent of an aphid, the petrichor of the garden leaf litter, and the heady intoxicating aroma of a handsome male bug. Jacob suspected she'd never be able to find a mate among the humans, so weak (and mildly nauseating) were their pheromones.
I am male now, she mumbled aloud to herself, a bit surprised.
She'd still be thinking like a female ladybug, wanting to find a male bug to mate with her after which, she would lay her eggs and
I cannot lay eggs, she said, an instinctive frown of disconcertion flashing across her otherwise blank, human countenance.
This fact bothered her more than being abruptly transformed into a towering, hairy, brutish vertebrate. As an insect she had yet been a youth, her maidenliness intact. She'd looked forward to mating with a strong, handsome bug and then laying many, many clutches of eggs. But now that she was one these smelly, bipedal apes and a male one at that she'd be expected to copulate with a female hominid, who would then be the lucky one to go off and lay eggs.
That's not right, she mused.
Indeed, her human brain was trying to alert to something. Damn, these monkey memories are so hard to sort through and make sense of. But why, they don't lay eggs at all! Their eggs are internal, and reproduction is done via some kind of disgusting system of placental viviparity. Yuck! Why couldn't these blasted apes just copulate and lay eggs like any decent, self-respecting arthropod.
At least I am no longer a little bug, she muttered.
The massive human brain she'd inhereited with its byzantine library of arcane memories was itself enough compensation for having to surrender her entomoid femininity. She'd just make excuses with all the human females she encountered, letting them politely know she did not desire to fertilize their internal eggs at the present time.
But I must not 'talk dork' when I do speak, she said, remembering her earlier conversation with the human female Emily. I must study my new memories and experiences. I must become fluent in being the human male Jacob. I must teach myself to talk as he does.
The process, however, seemed an exercize easier-said-than-done. The new Jacob paced about the interior of the human nest the home, they called it focusing all her mental energy on trying to recall specific conversations the old Jacob had engaged in. But something about the magic event that had transmigrated the identities of bug and human into one another's body seemed to have also left behind mere trace elements of thoughts, personalities, and experiences encoded in the physical brains of said bodies. No matter how hard she tried, Jacob simply could not force herself to recall specific memories. Rather, they seemed to just pop into her head at seemingly random moments.
I must experiment and learn, she said to herself. I will engage in trial-and-error? Yes. I will test out various human things and observe the reactions of humans in my my oh, what is a group of humans called?
Her own kind gathered together in groups called a loveliness of ladybugs. But what were clusters of humans colonies, swarms, broods, herds? None of those felt right. Damn! These weird monkey-people were proving exceedingly difficult to comprehend.
I will observe my immediate cohort of humans, she said, finally settling upon a collective noun. If they think I am talking dork or acting dork, I will alter my words and/or actions in order to better blend in. Given sufficient time, I will be accepted as a normal, male member of their group.
Just then, Jacob heard the front door of the human nest creak open. She turned her human, male head towards the sound, eager to test her abilities at impersonating a member of both a different gender and species