Touch.
Touch.
Soft, scattered kisses of sensation.
The dream, of course, was a trick of the brain to explain away stimuli and cling to sleep. Something was touching Green’s face.
Touch.
Touch.
Touch.
Something pushed against his upper lip, then moved off.
The dream fizzled.
He awoke to a cartoonish sight. A thing from his distant past. A kids’ TV show teaching letters and numbers.
“Today is brought to you by the letter S.”
A living S the color of new April leaves was perched on his chin, swaying in the air like a cattail.
His eyes focused and he saw rows of waving stubby legs and two dark, oversized eyes that brought to mind a starship captain’s helmet in a science fiction show. His muscles spasmed hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. He just barely had time to override instinct and stop himself from swatting the creature off his face.
Instead, he froze.
The caterpillar noticed none of this. It finished tasting the air and resumed its crawling, inch-worming its way over Green’s head and onto the cot beneath him.
His dream merged with life. He felt the gentle touches of rose petals moving over his scalp. His chest. His left hand. Both shins.
His view broadened and suddenly he could see that every part of the little cabin was brought to you by the letter S.
There was a shaggy lawn of caterpillars on every surface save the hot stove and lanterns. Each and every one of them inched and halted, reached and periscoped upward at the exact same pace and cadence, perfectly synchronized. It gave the room a green strobing quality that was difficult to watch. In the harsh white lantern light, ashifting text of shadows moved like an arcane alphabet across the walls.
Never had Green been more invested in keeping still. There was no way he could move without crushing a bratwurst-size caterpillar. It was intolerable. He was terrified to alter his position, yet lying prone in a sea of unknown organisms with unknown purposes made his amygdala scream.
He was vulnerable. His soft underbelly was laid out like a buffet. What if they were carnivorous?
He could hear a nature documentary voiceover in his head. A soft-spoken British voice offered commentary.
“The caterpillar’s only job is to feed.”
His imagination summoned a copy ofThe Very Hungry Caterpillar,except instead of fruits and vegetables, the friendly illustrated insect ate one, two, three vital body parts.
He had to sit up. He was going to sit up. The only question was, how?
How hard could this be?
He moved his right arm into view. It was, mercifully, caterpillar-free. Next he took that arm and began exploring the side of his body. He had a slow-motion collision with one caterpillar. His heart stopped. It rolled down his belly and landed on the cot with a barely audibleplop. Unperturbed, it didn’t miss a beat in rejoining its siblings’ inching dance.
Green exhaled.
Okay. That’s promising data.
He gently swept two more from his hip and another from the place on the cot he planned to plant his backside. With infuriating slowness, he tilted himself into a sitting position and set his feet on the floor.
A caterpillar climbed onto his lap.
