This one is not about monsters invading perception to break us, but rather a bug struggling to give meaning to its brief existence in that same fragile world, and a man healing a wounded leg utilizing what was supposed to be a long and relaxing swim.

Dancing between existing, death and the realization that there is nothing in between, one ladybug craves more. That is my perception on seeing it fly down, and only at its end does that aspiration bear fruit at the moment our paths cross and delude the meaning of it all, into believing there is anything more.

Your life will not end today I think as it touches the water’s surface answering this question.

At the onset of our meeting still tangled by fate I glimpse through its small eyes a romantic picture of full existence. The struggles needed to appreciate it or the death required to give it meaning are only abstract instruments to achieving it all. The full meaning eludes it and forever will for to truly live, a line must be drawn. One to give choice, to sow doubt, to inspire fight. A shapeless death to contrast the firm truth we walk in. But to keep us together after it divides us, a second line needs to be drawn. One that is neither right nor wrong, but a common ground upon which our award awaits. Possibility.

To truly live these three spaces must be divided.

Out there amid an ocean griping at my feet and calling beneath its line, is where the bug and I meet. She broke it too, that line dividing sky and sea but unlike me, she did so as a result of that abstract idea of living she is accustomed to. So still fighting, a ladybug is determined not to waste a single moment of hope.

This is where I extend my hand to become a part of her… second line. She doesn’t have to understand it, just feel it. I’ll do everything to get her there.

Doing so I commit myself to forfeiting half of what strength was saved for battling the water that still stood between me and firm ground. Looking forward then back from where I came, validated my initial assessment: I’ve reached the halfway point of my journey. A fact that made the choice to turn back pointless. If I am to do it in these circumstances I have a frightening amount of ocean still to traverse. Still, it was a sacrifice I made without thinking, as such life trumped comfort. A choice made right not by me, but by the way this creature made it so. Happy to find out I was still able to contribute to it, I lost no more time and began my swim.

That phrasing echoed through my mind to the far reaches of my beginning to the distant visions of my future for the rest of the swim. Until I finally had an answer.

There at the onset, I saw only this, a romantic picture of full life.
A child like all others built from firm ground. But unlike most, I took my time to develop. While those around me drew their lines I stood firmly in place admiring the picture in front. Fortunately, I was introduced to this world with more than most, so right from the start, in just a step or two, I could easily reach higher ground. But I knew even then and at that point, that while considered big, praised, and congratulated, they would soon grow up and my steps would no longer be looked upon with admiration, but tedium. At that moment they would start to notice something I knew then at the beginning: that I am slower than them. They would see only that and be agitated twofold: once for feeling superior, and then again for not understanding the reason why. Either way, we were not in the same place, and they would not see that it was because we ran toward different destinations. So I decided to prepare myself then, while I was still strong. Using the world while it still saw me, or rather while it was still interested in me.

Two sentences that I wanted etched in time as monuments for the days to come:

One said to them, not so they would learn from it, but as a legacy that I existed. “You see me now as someone far wiser than I should be, and in that, you find comfort and security. But in years to come you will grow and I will not. And very soon there will come a point where you will start to pity me just as much. Not for being smaller but for falling so far. It’s not me and my ideas that will change, it is you.”

And one told to myself, repeated in my mind every day of my life: “Even if they will cause you great harm, never give up on them. It’s the way you will remain human.” I forced myself to hear this daily as I knew it would prove trying to keep true, so I had it become a part of me.

Holding this creature here I am sorry that I must admit how even if both of those sentences proved true, only one of them left me far too early. I no longer repeat it as I no longer believe it.

Thanks to the ability to see the picture in front I am able to save this bug. But the price it took to get here makes me despise it. It’s an interesting conclusion that forms in my mind that gets me to this decision. One that runs concurrently with pride and loathing in equal measure. But I feel that this direction will shift very soon. I thought it already had, but at least for now, this shows it still stands true.

I have become resentful of them all. Too burdened by Shadow, too weak to fight them off. They have pilled on me too heavy. But I love to swim as it seems to be a place that overwhelms them. The water’s eternal current forces life upon those who are not in its company, so for that moment at least, they let go. The tradeoff being their endless screams of ignorance as they struggle with the surface. I will talk about Shadows at an even later point seeing as two lives being dragged to a watery death takes precedence over exposition. At this point just imagine swimming through an endless ocean of drowning people screaming in agony. Their numbers so many it sometimes makes the surface look like an ocean of flesh. That is the tradeoff. But a cheap one to pay for a moment of solitude. So I swim through them as best as one man can using one arm and only one leg.

Admiring the picture in front of me, I could appreciate every detail. And all it took me was to get to a point of total stagnation. Was it worth it to see it all alone? No, it wasn’t. The Possibility of it being more, makes it false.

Despite my interference, the bug died as it was supposed to.

It kept walking down my arm and limited by its perspective it kept being pulled toward the line it was initially meant to cross. It kept walking too close to the water’s surface. So clenching my fist I kept it safe until we reached the threshold of rigid ground. Exhausted but proud, opening my hand showed its life succumbed by my nature: it lay still. Suffocated by the lack of air I deprived it of.

In its life, I turned out to be nothing.

Yes, you probably noticed now that I see Possibility. I see the firm ground, the deep darkness, and by understanding the difference, I mark them by lines. As mentioned before, as someone different I live in two places. And yes, as you may have guessed, one of them urges toward calamity.

For you see there exists one more line.

Called The Outline, it stands without a number as it is seen as such only by those not knowing the other two. For those who live diligently admiring the picture. They call it Depth and cling to it when the picture finally shows its borders. They mistake Depth for Possibility and cross over behind a boundary that should not be touched for it holds our shape.

But that is not our inner world, it is what we battle it with.

Unravel it just enough and you get a demon; do it a little more and you have yourself a monster. Losing shape little by little, line by line, allows you to easily see that depending on the amount of form you unravel, the more distant you grow from everyone else. Becoming more unrecognizable, until finally shapeless. These final forms are what I call Shadows, and the thing they call Depth is something I know as The Core.

Sometime later, to lessen my burden once again, I return for another swim. This time not alone. In my company, a person special to me joins in the activity. Their inclusion does not burden me but adds to the leisure.

So you see, I am not doomed yet!

Halfway past our swim, she gasps at something in front, I turn and stop for a moment lingering on its meaning. Believe it or not, we stumble upon a drowning ladybug. Even thou I tell her the story of the bug recalled here, neither of us is inclined to leave it to its fate. So I decide to become its line again, this time one leg stronger we swim toward the Possibility in the distance together.