Thank you for joining us, caterpillar. This is a very big day for us. More precisely, it’s a very big day for you.
First of all, let us just say that you’ve been such a good eater. As you may have guessed, cycling through those five progressively larger iterations of your body, all that munching has not been for naught, and, well, let’s just come out and say it.
In—oh, gosh, it never gets old. OK. Look at me, the nervous one, when it’s you who’s getting the exciting news. Here goes. You’re not going to have that caterpillar body of yours for much longer. Nope! Soon, you’re going to attach yourself to the underside of a leaf, go into a state of coma-like, almost frozen animation, and when you emerge… Oh, I love this part. When you emerge, caterpillar, well, I’ll just say it. you’ll have wings. Yes, wings. Two beautiful, pliable, wings.
Caterpillar, if it’s not already obvious, you’ll be able to fly. Yes, flight. You will no longer be leaf-bound, branch-bound, earth-bound. Soon, you will be free from the chains of gravity.
Oh, and real quick, also, your jaws will be totally gone and in their place will be a long, skinny sort of horror tube that comes in two curling, dangling ribbons that you’ll have to figure out, totally on your own, how to zip together like the opening to a terrifying Ziploc bag, only it’s not a Ziploc bag but instead it’ll be your body’s main nightmare-like portal to the rest of the world.
Just imagine. You’ll be able to explore the skies, let the winds carry you wherever you want to go. East, west, north south. And up, caterpillar. Up.
Oh, and instead of those dozens of legs you’re used to, you’ll have six legs and there’ll be basically tongues on the end of each of them. You’ll have six tongue-feet.
The excitement! The tradition! It gives me chills. You’re about to join a long line of caterpillars that has gained the ability to break the bonds of land.
And also break the bonds of eating actual food, because not long from now your only way of eating will be via a freak-ass little mini-pump in your head that sucks up nectar and water and whatever else up through that horror tube I mentioned earlier and basically just straight into your at the same time completely new and completely prehistoric flying-insect gut.
So, yeah, caterpillar. That’s what you’ve been building toward all these weeks. A destiny with the skies.
And also a destiny with eyeballs that are made of eight billion smaller eyeballs that look absolutely and totally fucking freakshow as fuck up close. You’re gonna look great, caterpillar, when you become a butterfly, but only from a distance. At close range, you’ll be a fucking monster, unrecognizable even to yourself.
But: Up, up, and away. Congratulations, caterpillar. Heavens! Butterfly, I mean. Here’s to the new you!