We didn't have him long.
It all began when Soph cut some parsley from our window herb box and stuck it into the neck of a French Limonade bottle filled with water so we would have ready access to it for cooking.
One morning we padded into the kitchen to make our breakfast, and there HE was. Munching away.
Curly. Curly the Caterpillar.
Each morning we would check in on him and we would find a new empty stem stripped of its fresh green leaf. We would shout, "Yay Curly! Eat, little guy! Eat the shit outta that!" And he did.
Until one day, we noticed Curly was no longer perched on his stem. Where did he go? Soph and I were heartbroken. Did we not give him enough support? Was he feeling stiffled by us, smothered by our attention?
Or had the fat-ass cat decided his Friskies were not as satisfying as a moist, lush, defenseless little critter?
We were desolate. We moped around the house, barely speaking or eating, listless in our grief.
Two days later I was surfing the net in mourning when I heard a shout from the kitchen: "Charlie, no!" (In his grief Soph had forgotten Curly's name.)
Curly was lying on his back on the kitchen floor, his top-half partially ruptured and oozing an amber goo. But he was alive!
Soph immediately set to action. He began performing CPR, but was confounded when he couldn't find Curly's mouth. So he lifted him gently onto a household napkin and brought him to a window, and began to feed him fresh parsley to get his strength back.
But Curly would not eat.
He had trouble staying upright.
All his little legs were kicking, mustering his remaining energy to carve out a concise, deft, and artful mortal gesture into the air, so it might be called beauteous by the caterpillar gods-- who, so deeply moved, would grant unto him one last chance to reign pulchritudinous and pure in a world awash in ugliness and depravity.
It didn't work.
We placed the dying Curly on a leaf in a bush outside, so that he might breathe his last among his bretheren in nature. We left for the day, and when we came home Curly was dead.
I guess some souls shine too brightly for this world... they must illuminate us from above. RIP, dearest Charlie. Er, Curly.
