Written August 2021

Bug Beauty

The sun shines down onto the wildflower field, its rays filtering over the weeds and bright, brilliant flowers that bloom at waist height. The field stretches for miles, the rest of the world forgotten on its edges. No one has disturbed it in the many centuries I’ve been here, letting it grow as it wanted, letting the flowers, and the grass, and the weeds, and all of nature itself take root and reclaim her own land. Letting the field live, where I have been forced to hide.

I walk through the flowers, my bare feet sinking softly with each step. Spring had sprung and now summer gently opened her arms. Soft petals and sharp leaves tickle my palm as I brush my hand through the growth. My mind is blissfully empty, the sun beating down on my head. Warm, inviting, a balm from the days before. I tilt my head to the cerulean sky as I walk, closing my eyes and feeling the gentle sun’s rays brush my face, falling delicately onto my eyelashes. Mesmerising patterns of golden shards dance behind my eyelids. Somewhere in the distance, I hear birdsong, and a smile pulls at my mouth. This is what living should be. 

I look down again and glance over my shoulder. He has stopped a few feet back, his face inches from a poppy leaf. My smile remains on my face as I retrace my steps and stand beside him. 

A ladybird sits calmly on the gently swaying leaf, Ben analysing it intently. I am quiet, keen to be in his presence, watch him observe my creations. His concentration doesn’t break, but a small breath, a small gust of wind makes the fire-red ladybird spread her wings and fly off to another resting place. 

Ben straightens and smiles at me, my joy reflected in his face. In the open, it is silent, and I feel at home. At home with him, at home here, where there is nothing and no one else for miles.

“Have you heard of the nursery rhyme about ladybirds?” Ben asks, continuing forwards. I shake my head and follow, my shoes swinging in one hand. He thinks for a moment, slipping his hand into my free one. 

A butterfly flutters right past us and his face gleams at the blue-winged insect gone within a moment. 

“I don’t think it would make sense in English,” he says, looking out at the green horizon. “And I don’t remember enough of the language to do it justice–” there is a tinge of sadness in his voice, at the inability to connect to his heritage. “–but, it goes something along the lines of fly, my little ladybird, your children wait for you by the window, fly my little ladybird, return home and care for them.”

I don’t reply, letting the silence of a ripening summer fill the gap between us. He turns to me. “Do you know why insects interest me so much?”

I shake my head. He pulls me to a stop but doesn’t drop my hand. I look into his eyes, their hazelnut colour melting and glowing almost golden in the late afternoon light. The air around us is warm and still, as though the entire world has fallen quiet. Fallen still, and breathed in deeply, momentarily pausing in the chaos.

“Because they are so unlike us, yet we can learn so much from them. They are so small, yet…nothing can stop them. They are beautiful, spots, stripes, marks and all, and they cannot fathom that they are any less beautiful.”

“But they can’t fathom being beautiful in the first place,” I say, unable to hold my tongue. He smiles. 

“Devil’s advocate, you are,” Ben teases, nose wrinkling as he briefly leans closer. “Possibly,” he agrees. “But in the end, they do not care. Their lives are short and they know nothing interesting will ever happen to them. They live in a world where a single misstep, a single beat of their wings can lead to their death, and yet they live. They exist, and they do not care what will happen to them tomorrow. They care for now, for the present, and they exist in all of their beauty.”

Something shifts in his gaze, as though he is trying to pierce me; as though he could absorb the sun’s heat and use it to burn me open to see my bleeding, beating heart. 

“You exist in so much beauty, and yet you can not see it.” His voice falls quiet, as though he doesn’t even want the bugs to hear. “You care for what everyone at home says about you, you see their whispers, their points and their stares, and you forget how short your life is.”

My eyes are locked on his, and I cannot drag myself away from him. Tears prick in the corner of my eyes, and I can feel my throat begin to close up. A quiet voice tells me to not cry, to keep it in, but his warmth has already torn down all my walls. 

He lets go of my hand, and brings both large palms and places them on either side of my face, gentle, comforting, safe. Home. A tear runs down my cheek, and my chest feels as though it has caved, yet… there is no pain. Only the feeling of something untying deep within me, loosening, like my rib cage has moved and given me space to inhale. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Ben whispers. “When you’ve just woken, when you’re getting ready, when you’re laughing, when you’re crying. When you’re so frustrated at something and you talk too fast, when you’re with children, when you care, when you love. You are love itself. You are light, and love, and warmth, and you are so beautiful.” I cannot stop my tears from falling, as though they are what is unwinding this centuries-old, tight-knitted ball of yarn of feelings within me. Ben’s eyes bore into mine. 

“Look around you,” he says, though neither one of us breaks our stare. “You can create all of this. You understand all of this, and would you ever call this ugly? Would you ever look at the wonderful work of nature, and think it should repaint itself? Should die and try again? Why would you, then, look at yourself, a work of nature, and think to change? When you already exist as you are? Spots, and stripes, and marks, and all. You, my love, my wonderful, beautiful butterfly, are so much more than enough.”

He falls quiet, and I feel lighter than I have in centuries.