Boundaries

A Story by absorb21

very short Twilight Zone-esque

Boundaries By Luis Pérez

He always somehow knew this would happen. As the twelve year old stood, frozen in shock in his own back yard, he considered that he knew this very moment would occur, and yet it held him completely captive in shock. Jonah was a typical twelve-year old, growing up in the warmer part of the country. And along with the warm weather, he enjoyed the unlimited supply of insects that constantly battled over territory. As recent as a few years ago, Jonah was fond of collecting and examining insects he captured. He would keep track of the wide mayonnaise jar as it emptied. Today, with an empty pickle jar in hand, he wished he could take it all back.

It was when he became used to the thrill of having captured an insect that young Jonah began to treat his prisoners especially badly. He drowned them, with ammonia, vinegar, and bleach if he could. He rubber-banded them together, five or six at a time. he sprayed them with aerosols, his mother’s perfumes, and father’s colognes. His only regard was that he killed them in unique ways each time. He intently watched whatever bug he had just incapacitated, until it became motionless. Spider webs were his only exception, he profoundly enjoyed throwing every kind of insect into live spider webs and then watched, mesmerized if he was lucky enough, as the spider engulfed its fortuitous catch into a soft, tight cocoon. The television never held his attention this way.

Eventually, after many, many bugs, Jonah was no longer entertained by this game. He turned his efforts to quick, efficient annihilation. So he poured pots of boiling water on ant hills, he squirted concentrated soap solutions at bee hives; he turned over logs where insects burrowed quietly and let them dry in direct sunlight. As he ran in the tall grass, startled grasshoppers jumped and fluttered in long arches away from him. Jonah tried to squash them while he ran as they landed. Jonah’s parents never noticed his dark side as it never revealed itself anywhere else. He was an average student; he helped around the house with average enthusiasm, he got along fine.

When playing with a friend, Jonah noticed how the boy’s father reprimanded him for sitting on a bush. “We must respect the Earth, it gives us life” he heard the man say. He silently considered this. Those bugs didn’t belong to anybody, who knows if they feel any pain even… Jonah’s own father had recently assigned him the chore of keeping the yard. So Jonah cut the grass, and trimmed the hedges, and watered plants, killing every insect he encountered. He enjoyed working outside, and especially loved watching the plants grow. He noticed the holes in the leaves where caterpillars ate them. He used the hoe to rake anthills completely flat. How they scurried, frantically in a collected vibrating mass. Even as the larvae wiggled as they were carried away by the solider ants he raked on. Tomorrow this ant hill would be completely abandoned.

As the fall approached, with the days still sunny and hot, Jonah had less work to do in the yard. When he noticed the grass growing tall, blossoming, he went out with a pickle jar, taking note of the work that was necessary. Today, Jonah would not interfere with any insect he encountered while cleaning the yard. Not because there weren’t any, despite his onslaughts they remained as present as ever, but today Jonah would respect the insects. As the screen door behind him swung shut, the bang did not startle the grasshopper he was looking at. Because he didn’t yet understand what was already happening he continued to approach it. Had he realized what it was, he would have run away in terror. This grasshopper was unrealistically huge, like a movie prop, four feet long and stood motionless in plain sight.

When Jonah recognized what it was, about six feet away, he stood shocked. The yellow grasshopper lay across from Jonah so he could see it very well. The dark eyes, the neatly tucked away folded wings, the way tiles of smooth surface pleated together, dark patterns on its body and the sharp ridges on its hind legs. The grasshopper was unreal, yet it lay a few feet from him, about as big as a large cat, basking in the sun. In a panic Jonah raised his leg to stomp it and the grasshopper only twitched its large bulging eye, and before Jonah realized it he froze once more in panic. He threw the empty jar at it but missed wildly. The grasshopper was beautiful, Jonah recalled hearing grasshoppers descried noble and handsome, they really were.

Without thinking, Jonah began to back off, slowly, instinctively, the way he imagined he would back away from a pack of wild dogs; knowing that a quick gesture could set it off. When he realized the grasshopper was not pursuing, he felt a rush of blood released in his body as he relaxed. He closely watched the grasshopper as he continued to back away towards the screen door he had just shut moments ago. Jonah felt the ground under his feet, like sand as he backed away but did not look down, keeping an eye on the grasshopper, who seemed to keep an eye back on him. It wasn’t until the ground became too soft and his foot sunk in up to his ankles that he looked and to his horror realized his foot was stuck in the largest anthill he had ever seen. He didn’t understand how he had missed, it was about eight feet wide, and he felt ants wriggling into his shoe. In a full panic Jonah screamed and at that moment felt the crashing of the gigantic grasshopper upon him. The weight it was enough to sink Jonah past his knees into the anthill, and when the grasshopper jumped off Jonah it sunk him further. Jonah noticed the familiar arc of the grasshopper’s flight as he held himself out of the anthill only by his arms now. The ground he gripped fell apart and the more he struggled the more he sank. It never occurred to him to be still, uncountable quantities of ants fell from his hair to his face and as he wiped them away, batches and batches more covered him.