Supposed to be Watering Plants

A Day in the Life

Introduction
Awareness of the darkness. The pressure. The split – the nymphal skin along my back breaking open. Two years here in the murky depths. Crawling around the riverbed. Hiding under stones. Filtering food from the constant flow of water. This was different. Transformation. My new body emerging, its unfamiliar limbs perplexed by the effort. Cool morning air brushed over my emerging form. The first breath of atmosphere invigorating cells that had experienced only water. What sensation. Electric. Magnificent. Alien. I pause at the river surface as my wings, translucent, delicate, unfold from the tight package on my back. They tremble in the breeze. Dry rapidly in the pink dawn light. My adult, compound and complex, eyes start to evaluate the world in a manner that my nymphal stage could never have comprehended.

The river beneath me, once my entire universe, had become a reflective boundary. The mirror between two worlds. Above the sky infinitesimally large, stretching forever, with colours of startling clarity to my new vision. Ultraviolet patterns were the maps guiding me in my celestial flight. Leaving the surface instinct reiterated what conscious thought found difficult to grasp – ‘this day is all you have’. Two years in the preparation for a matter of hours of flight. This body, perfectly designed, and yet existentially ephemeral, would never see another dawn. All around thousands of others were emerging through the same metamorphosis. My brethren. My generation. All rising together. Wings absorbing the first rays of sunlight. The air above the river converted into a cloud of shimmering movement.

There was no mourning for the brevity of my adult life. How could there be? My senses were alive with wonder. Every moment pregnant with purpose. Below fish were splashing. Above birds were calling. Gentle currents of air lifted me higher and higher. There wasn’t room for regret. There was only the purity of the undiluted experience of being. I would never taste food. As an adult I was not designed for eating. My sole purpose now was to dance, to mate. Continue the unbroken line of mayfly existence that had flowed through countless ancient seasons. Higher and higher I rose into the emerging day embracing the fleeting, glorious perfection of my mayfly existence.

One day. One life. One chance. One dance beneath the sun.

Authors Note
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