Bugs.

I stopped looking at bugs when I was ten. I thought I'd never see them again - the woodlouse carrying its eggs or the scuttling ants. But I didn't stop looking; I merely changed the subject. The bugs grew larger to human proportions - to humans.

With our nests, our queens, our prey and predators, our enemies, our rituals - we're no different. We're just bugs being bugs to the extreme. We're no more than the wasps and hornets of the world - only flightless.

Aren't we glorious?

But rather than retreat to subterranean realms, this bug will try to escape its chrysalis stage. Many bugs the world over are doing this. One day, maybe we'll all grow wings and take flight and see horizons unavailable to our ground-based forebears.

To the insects, arachnids and arthropods - the many species* of human - I say may we one day lose our limbs, our fangs and stingers, our shells, our pessimistic feelers; may we one day become one with the air.

May we feed on the pollen of progress and the nectar of spirit. May we rest in love's sanctifying shade in summer whilst the grand, yellow plasma orb suspended in the sky nourishes and tortures the very earth it gave scope to exist.

*I am of course using the word 'species' figuratively here.