Grasshopper: A True Story

Being a grasshopper, she never really questioned her life or the things that happened in it. She was happy to roam the fields of Chile eating whatever seemed green and nutritious. One day, she came upon a field of miniature trees. She found their leaves gave her more energy than anything she had eaten in her life. She decided to spend her days in the pleasant - if uniform - field feeding on the leaves of the miniature trees by day and resting in their long smooth stalks by night. She wondered why so many of these plants would grow uniformly in one large field, especially since she had never seen this plant before but since she wasn't used to wondering she just calmly fed on the leaves of the miniature trees by day and rested in their long smooth stalks by night. One the 10th day of her time in the field she sensed a great rumbling in the distance. Nervously, she crawled deeply into the core of one small trees and waited for the rumbling to pass. Instead the rumbling only came closer. She closed her eyes and began to pray. The rumbling became deafeningly loud. It was accompanied by the sharp, slicing sounds of knives and she realized, too late, that there were humans near. A rough, calloused hand grabbed her stalk and severed it from the earth with a single efficient cut.

Her tree was placed onto a large machine and she felt an artificial rain. She waited. After 4 hours the machine stopped but before she could move her tree was bound by two blue elastic bands to two other trees. With searing pain she felt her strong right hind leg ripped from her body as the stalks compressed around her making movement impossible. Through the most anxious day and night of her life she barely discerned the sensation of transportation by truck, aeroplane and truck again. She was starting to wonder about her life when the cardboard box that she felt sure would become her coffin suddenly opened and another calloused hand lifted her tree out and placed it, carefully, onto a slanted table. She was in a room full of every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable, but many had been shorn of their delicious leaves. Even more disturbingly, the room was full of humans slowly grabbing at the fruits and vegetables, picking them up, putting them down again. What a nightmare, she thought, and fell asleep. She dreamed of rain.

She was shaken awake sometime later by a long thin human, more pale than any she had seen before. Her tree, and the two trees it was bound to, had been picked up and were stuffed into a suffocating plastic bag. The bag was placed into a metal cart. The long thin human had long blonde hair and she moved her cart methodically and efficiently through the room filling it with objects the grasshopper had never seen. The cart stopped seven minutes later and moved through a queue at the end of which everything was taken out of the cart and placed another suffocating plastic bag. Soon the grasshopper could dimly discern movement again, this time by automobile.

Breathing was becoming difficult and she did not prefer a plastic coffin to the cardboard one. But what could she do? Trapped by the elastic bands and compressed stalks the grasshopper could only think about her predicament. What had she done to deserve this? She sensed movement again, this time by foot. Soon, she was released from the outer bag. She yearned for more freedom but it was not to be. The most horrible coffin lay ahead of her, not behind. Her tree was placed into a rigid plastic drawer in a loud artificially cold white box. She felt her systems slow down. Five days passed. She dreamed of ice.

Finally, she was awoken by a torrent of water all around her. How ironic would death by drowning be after the last weeks of her life? She realized slowly, still cold from the hard plastic coffin, that she was significantly less restrained. The elastic bands had been removed. The trees lay side by side on a wooden board in a bright room. A long thin male human moved clumsily between some artificial fires, an artificial waterfall (the one which awoke her) and a selection of mushrooms, eggs, cheese and shallots. He had a knife in his hand. He took on of the trees in his hand and started chopping it into small pieces. He peeled the bark from the stalk revealing a soft pulpy interior which he cubed. He cut the leaves into florets and emptied it all into a metal strainer perched atop a pot of boiling water. Knife! Boiling Water! She must move! But movement after all this time was surely too difficult. And her most powerful leg had been severed. Was it better just to die?

She looked at the human. Why must they wreck everything? Why create such nightmares for the other creatures? She looked. And she looked with contempt. Suddenly, she realized that he wasn't moving. She felt the room erupt with fear. He was paralyzed, knuckles white from gripping the knife handle too tightly, and he was staring right back at her. They locked eyes for what seemed an eternity and she realized all in a moment that he was more afraid of her than she was of him. She started to move, ready to free herself from her prison, ready to find new fields of green. He sprung into action as well opening drawers and closing them, opening doors and closing them. He ran and grabbed a paper towel and came running at her. He looked at her. He looked at the paper towel. Disgusted at himself, she saw him throw the paper towel down to the floor. She was almost free. He opened a door and found a glass bottle with a metal cap. She shuddered.

What grasshopper doesn't grow up hearing myths of human creating coffins of glass and metal for grasshoppers, she thought. But what grasshopper can welcome a mythical death after avoiding so many in the real world?