The dust danced around the light bulb the room itself was dim. Mary could not believe it had been years since that fateful day her grandmother had passed away. She felt alive in this attic. It brought back many memories from a simpler time. Now at age 46, her children both grown up and moved out, Mary felt the need to seek out her past once again. Bring back to life the memories of her childhood. Even for just this one night, Mary wished to relive and explore the friendships of her childhood.
Mary walked up to the framed photohraph of her first dance with her girlfriend. She recallled how they both wanted to move in together. Mary released a breath. Dust spattered everywhere, it coated the face of Mary herself. Mary turned around at a sudden noise. It was a strange child in ragged poorly cobbled together clothes.
“Hello,” the girl began, “are you lost?”
“Who might you be?” Mary asked anxiously.
The house had been abandoned for many years to see another being here was odd to say the least.
“My name is Bun,” the girl chuckled in a manor much giddier than Mary had expected.
Mary’s antennae twitched. This girl had a curious scent to her it smelled familiar somehow. The realization came all too quickly. The young girl was the bug queen’s daughter. How had she entered the room? Were the rumors the bug queen could teleport others true? Bunny curiously stepped towards Mary and giggled.
“Well I suppose this is good-bye.”
“What? Wait!”
And with that, a blue portal opened which Bunny slipped into and vanished. Mary never visited her childhood home again.
The moon crescendoed into the sky usurping the end of the bug-men’s slumber. There was not a moment to rest for young Crystal they were wrapped up in their nightly sketching sessions. More than anything, Crystal enjoyed sketching the night life in their small town. Every nook and cranny was embedded into their mind in these moments. They soaked in every sound the cricket-men’s chirping, the dragon birds as they swarmed around their worm-men prey, the angered buzzing of the neighboring bee-men families as they bickered over the dispensing of honey, it all fascinated Crystal to no end.
Bun observed Crystal from behind a corner. She decided she would never interact with them personally simply view this bee-man from afar. Pencils in hand, Crystal furiously scratched out their artwork, lost in the thoughts from their day. Bun observed Crystal for hours, she admired their love for their craft. Bun stepped through the portal and returned to the nest without so much as a word to a soul in the village.
Their ruby lips enthralled the other spider-men although frankly it was unclear why so to Beatrice themself. Beatrice spun their silver thread with newfound determination from this thought. True they were plump for a spider-man but they deeply loved their place in the spider-men nest. Beatrice spun together their latest creation whistling all the while. Their thread wove carefully between their slinky black hairy arms.
With their right back leg, Beatrice tapped along to the rhythm. The tune had an unearthly quality to Bunny but even she admitted Beatrice’s thick black coat was luxurious. Bunny watched as Beatrice wove together a full set of ant-men gloves. The spider-men hive was brimming with warped, light black shadows. The spider-men were renowned the Bug world over for their high grade weaving. A bee-man needed their blanket as much as the next Bug-man.
Beatrice’s products were even worn in the Bug Queen’s royal court itself. Many a bug-man had fallen madly in love with Beatrice and been rejected. That said, equally as many rumours were everywhere of Beatrice’s many romantic entanglements. The spider-men were a rather promiscuous bug type after all. Bunny drowsily began to fall asleep to the rhythm. Eventually, the Bug Queen herself needed to open the portal for Bunny to return to the nest.
There I sat, swaying in the breeze from bee-men hive. A valley brimming with flowers stretched down and sloped upwards into the sky. The bee-men were collecting honey. The war between the bug men and humans had just begun at this point. The Bug Queen had transported me to another time period altogether this time. The bee-men were preparing honey to distribute for the war.
One by one, they collected from the flowers before they returned to the bee-men hive. Dewy honey dripped beneath me in the hive. The beehive was shaped like a vase with no bottom. Carefully crafted, meticulously constructed. The bee-men had poured their hearts into the structure. Drip. Drip. The humming of bee-men filled the air. The sounds overwhelmed me. The bright pinks and purple of the flours below. The portal opened and close and back to the Bug Queen’s nest I returned.
I shut my eyes and concentrated, a new landscape opened up before me. It was a lush tropical jungle teeming with plant life. A species of sentient carnivorous plants which feasted on the ant-men released a sweet scent to lure the ant-men in. An ant-man walked near one of the tiger lillies and cautiously observed it with his antenna. He was undertain if he should return to the nest with it for food supplies.
His feelers felt the tiger lilly up and down, the ant-man turned away as a sense of dread filled him. The tiger lilly morphed into a round orange shape and slurped up the ant-man. The porta; opened as I drifted back to sleep.
I shut my eyes and concentrated, a new landscape opened up before me. I sat atop a brown block, I was in a village made of chocolate. I peeled back the layers with my hand, excited to see where it would take me. A cockroach-man rested his hand on mine to stop me.
“You mustn’t do this, miss. Our world has boundaries.”
“‘Boundaries’?” I giggled as I repeated the word back.
“The capital of the cock-roach-men exists inside a walnut.”
A city made of chocolate. The cockroach-men, miniature as they were, sculpted and remolded their landscapes constantly. They were a species of architects, after all. The portal opened as I drifted back to sleep.
I shut my eyes and concentrated, a new landscape opened up before me. The portal opened as I drifted back to sleep.
Comicedy 