… cut you loose from a chain gang and let you go …
“It would be a dreadful thing to tell anyone about it, for it would destroy some fragile structure of truth. It was truth that might be shattered by division.”
Steinbeck, John. (1933). The Red Pony. The Viking Press.
__________
“I will return to my home,” the new Jacob said aloud.
“Give me back my body!” screamed the old Jacob, but to no avail. The tiny insect presently possessing his body was now ignoring his pleas. There was nothing Insect Jacob could do as Human Jacob approached the house and prepared to enter.
Then, without warning, Emily quickly came skipping up breathlessly.
Insect Jacob gazed upon her adoringly. Even through his weird, compound eyes, he found her beautiful. Oddly enough, he could now “smell” her sweet perfume through his creepy, bug antennae. It was an aroma far more powerful than he'd ever been aware of before … and he loved it. Emily was so perfect.
“Help me!” he called, buzzing around her head. “Emily – it's me: Jacob! Please. You've got to help me. That's an impostor in my body.”
The new Jacob swiveled her head and scowled angrily at Insect Jacob, but wisely said nothing.
Emily just batted Insect Jacob away with a casual flick of her hand; the simple gesture sent him tumbling to the ground, uninjured but several yards away from the two, towering giants now talking.
“Jay, I've changed my mind,” Emily said. “There's something really weird about that doughnut looking ring of copper you dug up. I still don't want Kaitlyn to get her hands on the thing. But … well, would you mind if I took it and held on to it for safekeeping? I'll just stash the thing in my purse, and maybe after my date … oh, tomorrow or the next day, I'll think of a good way of disposing of the thing.”
The newly Human Jacob remained frozen, her face impassive. She knew this cold, lump of tarnished metal was somehow responsible for the miraculous metamorphosis she'd undergone from female bug to male human. And although she was ambivalent about the change in gender, she had been enthusiastically enjoying her transformation of species. All in all, it was a transfiguration she was not willing to undo. Would surrendering this corroded, metal ring to the human female Emily result in Jacob ultimately being forced to return to a state of insecthood? Her apotheosis to manhood was akin to a glorious act of deification. She had been exalted and in doing so had transcended a mundane, ephemeral life that she'd never, until now, even known to be such a contemptible, lowly, transitory, and verminous existence. Jacob would not willingly submit to nor put herself in jeaprody of undergoing an entomomorphosis as the prior occupant of her human body had done.
“I cannot give you the object,” she replied with Jacob's soft human mouth and loud, obnoxious voice. “Please allow me to keep it, Emily.”
“C'mon, Jay: just knock it off and give me that metal doughnut already,” insisted Emily. “Michael's going to be here any matter for my date. I don't have time to argue.”
What could Human Jacob do?
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