Mammoth
Gold |
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Softly, silently the scented warm breeze of the tradewinds gently caressed the quivering feather-like triangular wings of a huge female moth. Clinging to the dark trunk of a wild mango tree close to the southern shore of Orchid Pond, she was the size of a lemon, but nearly invisible in the scant light from the crescent moon, her coloring being the same dark, warm brown as that of the bark of the tree.
A pair of oversized orange eyes, resembling the staring eyes of an owl, was outlined in the design on her gently fluttering wings; and her plump, velvety body pulsated in a sensual rhythm of movement. She was releasing, through glands swollen in estrus, sexual pheromones (fragrance polyps) to be carried off on the night breeze to anxiously waiting receptors on the antennae of a prospective mate.
Her small, chestnut-brown head held a striking resemblance to that of a fluffy Pekingese pup, with a stubby, puckered expression of endearing concentration on the features of her shiny, coal-black face.
Two golden, swaying antennae waved three inches in length in front of her, and ended in furry, black ball-tips, which were her personal sexual computers. With them, she could locate a prospective mate, by interpreting vibrations in the atmosphere and pinpoint, with unerring accuracy, the direction of his flight toward her through the darkness of a sickle-moon night. Exquisitely, she shivered in anticipation, for she could sense the beginning tempos of a magical interlude being played on the hairy, golden antennae.
The female mammoth moth, only three days into this final stage in a lifespan encompassing two exotic metamorphoses, had come into being atop a single sparkling stilt perched high on a leaf in a eucalyptus forest. Anchored securely to the eucalyptus leaf, the support had once been constructed of foam - a perch on which her mother had laid a single, amber egg-pearl.
The foam had oxidized and hardened into a translucent amber stilt, waterproof and heat-absorbent, on which the egg-pearl was loftily encapsulated, one-fourth inch above the surface of the eucalyptus leaf.
Incubated by the heat of the warm, tropical sun, weather-proofed and protected by the amber coating around it, the egg had lavishly initiated the beginnings of a miniscule caterpillar within its smorgasbord of life-giving nourishment.
In a short time, the caterpillar had emerged, a tiny, amber eating-machine, sexless, and with one single purpose in life: to methodically consume and injest, through its expanse of digestive tract, the greatest possible quantity of eucalyptus leaf at the fastest rate of speed.
Wooly fur adorned the caterpillar's little body, and a shiny coal-black mask with a seemingly concentrating expression was its face. Below the face, strong cutting mandibles were ready to begin their work, and a raging appetite gnawed in its tiny interior.
Down the sparkling stilt it descended and humped its hurried way to the edge of the leaf; there it paused.
Reversing direction, and clutching the leaf stem with its strong four back feet, it stretched as far up the leaf edge as possible, grasping progressively on both sides up the blade with its front six appendages.
With a satisfying sigh, it commenced its work, and began to inch its way progressively downward, munching with apparent gusto as it humped out of its stretch, to end in its original position, a furry ball, now clutching a leaf stem bare of leaf for the distance of the caterpillar's length.
Up again it stretched, already experiencing the first invigorating flush of new energy, to repeat the exact process of single-mindedly ridding the leaf stem of its burden of fertile chlorophyll.
After finishing the first leaf, leaving a naked spike of stem in its belching wake, the
amber wooly worm made its anxious way to the next leaf, then the next. Within an
astoundingly short length of time, the gluttonous little guru of gastronomic immensity had rid the entire end of a eucalyptus branch of a considerable amount of foliage.
Growing almost visibly, the puckerfaced caterpillar thrived in the eucalyptus forest, more than doubling its weight each day; and in an incredibly short time, had attained a surprising size. Now dining only during the dark hours of night, it hid its furry bulk inside curling leaves or in a crack on the treetrunk during the day, and the amount of leaf material it consumed was monumental. It had no sexual urges - indeed no sex - and led an uncomplicated, hedonistic existence in the shadowy, dark bowers of a eucalyptus banquet in the mountain forest above Orchid Pond. One night, two months ago, on the dark of the moon, the wooly caterpillar had climbed high into the eucalyptus tree to make its way to a spot on the underside of a strong branch.
It secured its rear end to the wood by exuding a resinous sap onto the branch from a vent in its tail. As this resin dried into a strong, flexible hinge which could easily support its considerable weight, the roaring of its monstrous appetite was finally quieted.
With a final expulsion of breath, the caterpillar, now a full three inches in length, loosened its grip with its furry front limbs and slowly, easily allowed its gorged bulk to arch downward. Dangling, it was supported by its two rear feet and the hinge of resin. Within a few minutes its feet had loosened their grip, and it hung suspended head-down from the underside of the supporting branch.
As the hard-earned rest of the weary laborer overtook it, the caterpillar ended its term as a fanatic food processor and began unknowingly on a mystical journey into the delights of long-distance sex. Never again would it eat, nor hump merrily around its green bower; for in the next incarnation it was destined to be a scent-emanating sorceress of sexual delight, able to send messages of erotic imagery over the forest for a distance of twenty miles. Emanating in surges of pheromone polyps, her scent would be carried on the force of the trade winds to behemoth lovers waiting afar, and they would rush to join her, their Pekingese faces frozen in an expression of pugnacious expectancy.
The satisfying dreams of the satiated overtook it, and the juices and genes of the tiny caterpillar began to reform and realign into the beginnings of an amber mammoth moth.
Its furry bulk began a slow, twitching shrug as the skin at its tail started to split where the resin was attached to the vent. With slowly-spaced shrugs, the caterpillar began to shed its splitting furry skin, humping it down in a wrinkled coverlet over its black-button head.
A pale, translucent skin of nakedness was revealed as the furry one slowly descended, and it shone like a jewel in the scant moonlight as the night air began to dry and crystallize it. Soon the new skin had hardened into a dull, amber chrysalis, adorned here and there with twinkling jewel-lights of reflection.
Inside, the heart of the caterpillar formed the heart of a mammoth-to-be, and without losing a beat, worked steadily on as the body of the female moth began to materialize. Volcanic reassemblage of molecules resulted in a lava flow of creation, and in time the gleaming amber being inside showed luminously through the cuticle of the hanging translucent chrysalis. Rich brown coloring began soon to flood the interior, and orange owl-eyes stared errily through their encasement from the wings of the giant-to-be.
Finally she emerged through a rent in the back of her confinement, to stand triumphantly in the night air atop her discarded shroud, and pump lifeblood into the wrinkled coverlet of wings pleated tightly across her furry back. Slowly, inexorably the veins had filled with living pressure, and the magnificent miracles of her feather-like wings had spread their flexible glory in a lightweight, triangular shield above her muscle-bound back. No mouth did she possess, for hers was not a venture requiring sturdy sustenance; hers was a conquest into the heights of the heavens, to carry the bright body of her unseen lover on a meadowlark dive through hissing winds.
Curling into a tight coil below her pug features was a sipping-straw mechanism through which she was provided with energy-laden nectar for the two nights preceding this, and she had sipped long and luxuriously at the fountains of sweetness in the depths of the blossoms near Orchid Pond.
Now, on this night, she was ready for action as she clung, head down, on the side of the dark tree. The haunting stare of two orange owl-eyes shone mystically through the dimness from her back, while invisible pheromone polyps floated lightly away on the cool breeze.
The rushing white waters of a tall, thin waterfall shone in dimness in the scant moonlight seven miles distant. Hanging below the falls, but away from the spray, the dark, close branches of a Chinese pine tree sheltered the dimly radiant form of a waiting male moth. Patiently exploring the moisture-laden breeze from the waterfall, he seemed ready to launch his furry amber body into space at the least provocation.
Somewhat smaller than his mate-to-be, the male was the size of a walnut, his amber-colored body resembling a luminous dark shadow as he crouched on the limb of the pine. Adorning his Pekingese-like head - and the most striking thing about him - was an immense double plume of extraordinary golden antennae, stretching into the breeze in front of him for eight full inches. Delicate streamers of wide fronds of fiber, these plumes were scrutinizing the atmosphere for sensual traces of pheromone polyp carried to him on the night breeze from Orchid Pond.
The raging flush of desire he experienced was uncontrollable upon receiving the next positive assurance from the air, and he sent a surge of hurried energy to the wing muscles bulging on his back and soared out of the dark confines of the pine.
Up the misty face of the waterfall he fluttered, until he soon disappeared over the top. Through a deep forest of dense bamboo, interspersed here and there with giant Hawaiian fern trees, and past bowers of wild orchids he fled on nimble, fast-beating wings. Into and out of the darkness of a cave in a eucalyptus forest and on, never losing the fine thread of scent carried on the shifting soft breeze from Orchid Pond.
His fluttering flight carried him unerringly toward her, the polyps of bursting desire guiding him to his destined rendezvous in the darkness. As he approached through the misty stillness, his small heart beat strong pulses of anticipation, and he sighted the staring owl-eyes on the wings of his intended, winking invitingly from the source of the pheromone trail.
Landing lightly below her on the dark mango tree trunk, his searching antennae plumes waved above her, and she boldly caressed his furry dome with her own golden, ball-tipped scanners.
The two orange pairs of owl-eyes stared eerily through the dimness in surprised wonder from the dark trunk of the tree; then slowly and serenely, they merged into one as he gently mounted her furry back.
Hidden beneath the blades of her large, wide wings, only his black-buttoned face in stern concentration, was visible above that of her own.
Grasping her tightly in an embrace of fulfillment, he clung to her voluptuousness and was carried on the strong, beating wings of his mammoth mate, high into the cool night air above the pond.
Higher and higher toward the sickle-moon she carried him, seemingly unnoticed on her strong, healthy back. When it seemed that she'd never stop climbing, she folded her wings tight down against him, and they plummeted toward the far ground in a glorious bullet of amber consummation, hurling down through whistling breezes of ecstasy.
Straight down the two sped, until it seemed that they would shatter the surface of reflected sky in the fast-approaching dark waters.
Then suddenly, at the last possible second, she opened her wide wings to curve upward in fluttering flight once again; and they left four veins of gold to shimmer on the dancing mirror of the water - their antennae, having been broken away in the force of the wind against their fall.
Indeed, no catastrophe, this was a natural occurrence since the length of the appendages was now only a hindrance in fast flight. They had served their purpose well and were now unnecessary, so in the way of nature, they were discarded.
Up, up again, she carried him in this vertical ascent of ecstasy, to plunge, bullet-like, in hissing descent, the strong wind of their fall pressing in sensuous massage against their embrace.
They repeated this procedure until the day declared its coming with faint beams of dim light streaking across the high sky, and only the soft, rustling flutter of the sound of her ascending wing beats broke the stillness of the morning air.
Finally, spent, she broke out of a last free-fall to sail in a curving arc to a high point in a eucalyptus tree. Here, in a chlorophyll bower, she would leave her amber mate to find a secluded leaf, high in the coming dawn, and begin producing -one by one from her fat, fluffy abdomen - a host of twinkling, amber stilts of foam, each on a separate leaf, and each with a mammoth miracle enclosed on its miniscule tip.
Far below, a streak of discarded gold dust from the heads of wooly mammoths glinted a diamond spark of reflection into the coming dawn above Orchid Pond.
(c) 1993 Carson Clippard