We Won't be Dancing Together on the High Wire
Facing the Lions with You at My Side Anymore
“Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.”
Brontë, Emily. (1847). Wuthering Heights . Thomas Cautley Newby.
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Jacob, in his tiny ladybug form, deftly dodged out of the path of mom's gushing torrent of chemical venoms. A few microscopic droplets nevertheless managed to land on parts of his tiny shell of a body. The result was a paralyzing sensation of deathly cold. It wasn't enough to slow him down though. On the contrary, it motivated Jacob with a veritable rush of energetic panic. This was life and death! If he allowed mom to hit with bug spray, it was game over – no redo!
“What are you doing mother?” came the voice of Jacob's human body, still inhabited by the simple-minded soul of a lowly ladybug who did not wish to return to her prior life eating aphids in the garden.
“Killing a bug – what does it look like?” snapped mom. “Damn, I missed. Get me the flyswatter honey. I hate when these li'l bastards get in the house.”
“The … swatter of flies?” asked Jacob's body slowly.
“Nevermind,” sighed mom in a huff. “I'll do it myself … and I'll remember this come allowance day.”
As mom stomped off in search of a proper weapon to assassinate her son, Jacob watched in horror as his old human body loomed ever closer, peering at him with vacant, emotionless eyes.
“You are becoming a nuisance,” said the laydbug in Jacob's form. “But I do not desire that She-Who-Laid-Your-Egg should slay you.”
“You could give me my body back!” squeaked Jacob, in a tiny voice only he and the ladybug seemed capable of understanding.
“No,” said the beetle flatly. “I will remain the human male called 'Jacob.' But it is not my will that you be obliterated. How do I activate the device responsible for our transmigration of souls?”
What? thought Jacob.
For a moment, he didn't understand what the ladybug was even saying.
Then it suddenly hit him with a sickening thud of comprehension.
“No!” he screamed shrilly. “Please: don't use that metal ring on me.”
“I will not return my soul to that body,” said the ladybug, in a vain attempt to comfort the frantic insect buzzing madly around the room. “But I will attempt to utilize this … thing to place you in a different form – one in which you will be safe from the entomophobic bloodlust of your own mother.”
“Please – no, don't do this! Just open the window and let me fly back out. I'll be good – I swear!”
Jacob watched in horror as his human body held forth the Toroid of Transformation – then closed its eyes, gripping the ring tightly, and presumably made an unspoken wish.
What do you do now?
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