Crickets

Chirping crickets hidden away have told me of my fate. In certain words, I learned of my undramatic passing from the current world of living to that of para-life, where … drama would finally be mine. This is all that they would tell me, no matter how I would beg or plead. No bribe was large enough, no offer to generous. What could you give that a cricket would conceive of desiring?

As I walked away in defeat, two sparrows overhead twittered that they knew what a cricket would want. But they would not tell me for free.

“One eye and your left ring finger.”

Given this chance of a greater glimpse into a richer future, I could not refuse. So with a nod, they did descend, wings fluttering on my face and hand. One pecked and plucked out an eye and the other bit off the finger. I kept my silence.

"They wish for warm blood to run through their veins like it does through yours and ours.”

When approached with these words, the crickets cried and screamed. Anguish or joy, I could not tell, but I stayed silent in wait.

As time crept on, they recomposed themselves to former silent grace and asked how I would deliver on such a promise and this was my reply:

“You may settle on my flesh and draw as much as you need.”

Having already felt great pain, it seemed like a tolerable sacrifice. At my words, they collectively chirped twice and soon a small swarm flew onto me and a million needles pierced the skin, though it felt like they went through bone and sinew too. I collapsed under the weight of their task.

I do not know how much time passed – only that every second felt like an eternity of unfathomable pain that would have had me screaming had I the strength to do so. In some time, one chose to speak while the others still fed which made the pain all the clearer. Yet he spoke of my para-life encounter with the cursed Emperor of Annihilation – who would follow me for my knowledge thus earned from the crickets and then torture me for a thousand years in hope of learning more.

He spoke of my love for the para-living Princess of Fates – whom the Emperor would imprison after finding out and proceed to pleasure himself on her in my presence till her death at the five-hundred year mark of my captivity.

I heard the story of my escape after her death which would find me faced with a choice to bring her back to life for Annihilation or to return to imprisonment. And in a moment of horror, ask for her return and still be imprisoned once more for the next five-hundred years. Upon my release, she would carve off my limbs and sear my eyes, ears and tongue.

I begged to hear no more and the speaker complied, though that too would add to my doom, he added in the end.

And with this conclusion, the other crickets too ceased their feast and left my wretched shell. The speaker, however, had one more thing to say:

“This act signals your passing into the para-life. But you may choose to delay this. The only way that you can do that is through pain like you have endured today. It is all that will keep you alive. Each morning, a different creature will come and offer this to you. After this, they will feed you. If you send them away, even once, you will move on that day. The choice is yours.”

And with that, it disappeared into the freedom of the night.

Thus my fate had been set. The following morning, a pair of kittens carved off an ear and bit off a toe and returned with mashed fish and water to move me along. The day after, it was a group of mice who gnawed off the skin on my shoulders. Then a Boa that crushed the bones in my ankles. And so it goes.

Every night I have decided to send my morning’s “saviour” away and every morning, I have been unable to do so. A part of me hopes that one day I’ll “sleep” through their visit and the other part reminds me of the pain that prevents me from resting.

But here I still am, with no idea how many days and nights have passed – with veins filled with poisons that will not yet kill me, my body crushed and torn and chewed. Every thought running shivers through my cracked skull and exposed spine. And today’s visitor is the cricket who spoke to me of this aeons ago.

“Either you have much courage or far too much fear. I did not think that I would see you again in this life – the prediction of this sounded beyond mortals. I shall suffer for this disbelief, but that is for later. This will be your last day of life – no animal would dare come near one as wretched as you now. Soon, you must pass into the para-life and face the next stage of your fate. Yet, before you do, for the gift of your blood, I must offer some recompense. So if you should choose to try to avoid your thousand-year imprisonment, I will tell you three words which will place your fate on a different set of tracks. But I cannot tell what follows. This is your choice to use – you could enter a path far, far worse than anything you already know. When you first see Annihilation, speak the words ‘Four Holy Valleys’ and all will change. I wish you better fortune than I have known.”