Sir Reginald F. Grump XXIII presents...

The journal of unlikely entomology

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The log rider sat astride an enormous, misshapen oak tree floating down the swollen and swirling River Zaar, her four legs wrapped tightly around the trunk.

"Four legs?" you say, not asking. "Does she have two . . .?"

No! She was, in all respects like every other girl, save for her four long, sinuous legs, each the color of faint firelight reflected in porcelain; warm to the eyes, cold to the touch. And by "like every other girl" I mean that she was like none other, try as you might to objectify young women and deny them each their individual dreams and desires.

She was unique, as was the fist-sized red, yellow, and black beetle (Dicheros Bicornis) leashed to her wrist like a circus clown's painted poodle. The beetle was every bit as agitated as she was languid, pacing back and forth along the tree, racing up its longer limbs to get a glimpse downstream as the torrent rushed on.

"Rocks ahead! Evasive maneuvers!" it chittered.

"Relax," she said in a soft, rolling timbre that fluttered and descended from her like the curly golden waves of hair that brushed past her shoulders to cover her tiny breasts. "I am far too young to die, am I not, little Cascone?"

Cascone sighed and registered disappointment as best his chitinous frame could manage, scooting his front legs from side to side to emphasize that he was shaking his head, a movement that the girl could barely perceive.

"You are fragile, my young Cimbri, not invulnerable. Your naiveté might be the death of you before you reach maturity."

"Navy-tay? What is that? Some sort of ship?"

"A sort of ship, yes. The sort of ship whose crew, on the advice of an enemy, unwittingly sets sail with a breached hull into the open sea while a thunderstorm looms on the horizon."

"I thought that was foolhardy?" Cimbri asked.^{(1) 1 She asked, not saying, or, rather, saying the asking, not stating a statement or, rather, stating a question or questioning the earlier statement.}

Cascone again shook his head, this time in confusion, and so hard that the chitin of his head click-clacked against the chitin of his thorax.

"No, dear girl. 'Foolhardy' means, or at least implies, that those undertaking said action, in this case, the crew that decided to set sail under such conditions, had been forewarned or had gained enough experience to know that they ought not to have ventured forth, but did so anyway, whether out of spite, desperation, or a desire to prove their bravery. But, if you will recall, this crew set about their task unwittingly, unaware of the dangers that would likely beset them. Of course, you might argue ^{(2) 2 She did not.} that these sailors were simply ignorant, which is necessary to the definition of 'naiveté,' but not sufficient. They had been advised by an enemy, and they trusted this advice, which shifted their situation from one of ignorance, which is no one's fault, to one of naiveté replete with a victim and victimizer."

"I have heard of misers," Cimbri said. ^{(3) 3 Or stated.}

"Most misers are not naïve, my girl."

"I am so very confused."

"As I thought you would be," he said sagely. ^{(4) 4 Here one must ask, or ought to ask, if one is endowed with any degree of intellectual curiosity, how a beetle, Dicheros Bicornis, could gain such wisdom. Let us simply agree that any beetle, even one the size of your fist, especially one the size of your fist, fitted as it would be with an obviously larger-than-your-typical-insect brain, who, or which, if you are uncomfortable with personifying a giant bug, has travelled from the jungles of the east, across the wide ocean, over the sterile mountains beyond the desert, weaving in and out of marshes, avoiding reptiles, raptors, and entomologists before braving the metro poles of the southeastern temperate climates where peasants with six-syllable last names composed mostly of consonants bungle along the roads, drunk in wooden ox drawn carts and, finally, being captured by a four-legged diva of innocence and purity . . . well, you get the point. Or you ought to. Such a creature learns a few things along the way.}

A shadow overcame ^{(5) 5 Overshadowed, really. But to say so would be redundant.} Cascone. He looked up to see what had cast it. To his surprise and abject terror ^{(6) 6 Unnoticed by anyone else, since he could not twist his features to show emotion, no matter how strong he felt it.} he saw, above him, a bird, which had alighted ^{(7) 7 You might say "a-darkened" given the birds black feathers, but no one asked you. Shut up and listen to the story.} on a branch ^{(8) 8 A sideways branch, of course, which is, in some ways, like its own little tree. Insert some sort of clever symbolism from your belief system here.} of the floating tree.

It was a rook, incapable of swallowing him whole, but surely capable of rending him, then swallowing the pieces. Cascone skittered behind Cimbri, putting the girl between him and the bird. ^{(9) 9 Cascone did not want to provide an object lesson in naiveté, as much as it would benefit the child.}

The rook wore a stocking night hat, which sprouted from its head like a stunted purple and black striped tentacle. It held, in its beak, a small postcard. ^{(10) 10 Like the one you should be sending to your mother or son or auntie. Shame on you for procrastinating!} It was a pretty, beige card with bright red lace around the edges. There were words on the card that Cimbri felt compelled to read aloud after removing it from the bird's mouth. She said: ^{(11) 11 Read, really, but to explicitly state that she read it would cause some consternation on the part of the reader of this story who, upon reading that the girl was reading, would have to take mental pause to regain his or her footing in reality, thus thrusting the reader out of their willing suspension of disbelief, much like . . . ah, never mind. Carry on.}

Streaming Clouds
Will take away
Your screaming aloud
For the rest of your days
You have been warned

The bird, who had been dozing, awoke and flew away.

"Whatever could it mean, Cascone?"

The insect skittered about, twitching to and fro, ^{(12) 12 Or fro and to, depending on your perspective, and I don't know where your imagination stands.} his antennae wiggling with worry. He ran up and down the length of the tree, stopping still, momentarily, to scan the woods on either side of the river ^{(13) 13 Again, I don't know where your imagination stands. He might have been looking right at you, for all I know.} for any sign of danger.

"Be wary, young Cimbri."

"But I don't see why . . . mmmf!" Her words were muffled ^{(14) 14 And her mouth gagged.} by Cascone, who had bodily thrown himself over her mouth and nose. Her eyes bulged out in surprise.

A mustard-yellow miasma arose from both sides of the river, flooding the tree and the water's surface with a sickly mist. ^{(15) 15 Unless, of course, you are fond of chartreuse.} Rabbits and deer convulsed on the banks, fish floated belly-up into the river's eddies, and flocks of non-rook birds fell out of the sky in colors resplendent and dead.

The mist dissipated and Cascone fell from Cimbri's blue-tinged face.

"I am sorry I had to do that," Cascone excused himself. ^{(16) 16 As if Cimbri were not sorry that he had to do that.} "But that gas would have proven fatal to you. I myself inhaled just a few particles and I can now feel one of my lungs collapsing," he wheezed.

"I thank you," Cimbri wheezed herself. She thought she might be allergic to beetles stopping up her air passageways. "I will be more careful, should I see such mists arise again."

Cascone smiled. ^{(17) 17 Not that you could tell.} "I see that you are losing your naiveté already. This is a good thing, my child," he wheezed again.

"Good," Cimbri giggled. "Then I am learning."

"Indeed you ah...!" ^{(18) 18 "are" is the word, or would have been the word had Cascone been able to get it out.}

Cascone stopped mid-sentence. ^{(19) 19 Or, perhaps, toward the end of the sentence. We shall never know, since he did not finish. Which begs the question: should it be permissible to use the term "mid-sentence" while referring to the cessation of something that never had a clear-cut end? What about "mid-life"? Can one legitimately know one is having a mid-life crisis before one has died? And after dying, how would one know, or, if one believes in an afterlife, would one even care, unless one believes in the doctrine of reincarnation, in which case one would most certainly care, if only for the simple reason that one would have yet another mid-life crisis to face in the next incarnation, though said "mid" in "mid-life," speaking of the future state, would be indeterminate until the body dies, yet again.} Above him loomed the rook, who had slipped in during Cascone's pontifications. ^{(20) 20 Though the rook, wearing a hat, looked much more like a Pontiff than the beetle, who (or which) simply looked like a colorful bug on a leash.} The insect again skittered behind the girl, who reached out to withdraw yet another card from the bird's beak, at which point the bird fell asleep on the branch. ^{(21) 21 Perhaps you wonder what rookish dreams the bird dreamed as it slept. They involved some sporting friends, a long strand of piano wire, and a pencil-thin prima donna with a beehive hairdo. I will leave the details for you to sort out, but the woman did not fare well and the birds obtained a new nest. It is not by linguistic accident that we refer to a group of crows as a "murder."}

Cimbri said, or read, with a growing smile:

Teeming crowds
Will Cover you
Like a funeral shroud
Into the blue
Brace yourself!

"Ha ha!" she laughed, or said, but did not read, "I think I am about to become very popular!"

Cascone, twitching with nervousness, looked to the sky, earth, water, earth, sky, buggy eyes wide open for potential trouble. Seeing nothing immediate, he relaxed for a moment.

Then the river up-heaved like a reverse downpour ^{(22) 22 Of course, the word "up-pour" danced about on the two-plank deep stage of your little mind for a split-second, didn't it? Well, don't be ridiculous. Gravity still works in this story . . . and how! (we call this foreshadowing, by the way).} sending droplets everywhere. The rook flew off under cover of the spray. When the right-side-up downpour ended, Cimbri and Cascone stared at a large house that had breached the water's surface and was now floating alongside their tree.

The windows opened up to a chorus of coughs, splutters, and hockin' loogies, ^{(23) 23 Cascone knew there was a better phrase for this, but he couldn't concentrate enough to think of it with all the ruckus.} followed by the hoarse complaints of a score of different voices:

"Phewee!"

"Arful!"

"M'all wet!"

"Gitcher paws offa me, ya horndog!"

Twenty or more tenants poked their heads out, exposing their balding pates, broken-fence dentures, and bulbous noses to the open air. The smell of stale tobacco and hot grease wafted over the breadth of the river.

"Lookee. Ain't she purtee!" one voice called out.

"She shore is!" responded another.

"Love them there legs, honey!" yelled a third, which was followed by cat calls and whistles from men and women alike.

"These must be my fans!" Cimbri said with glee.

"No"!" Cascone shrieked, "they only mean you harm!"

But it seemed that Cimbri couldn't hear him above the whistles and splashes of water as the redneck mob dove from the windows into the river and swam toward the tree, some dog paddling, others floating on whiskey barrels and kicking the water, others using a companion as a raft in a frenzy of waving arms and legs. Their sweaty, mud-caked bodies soiled the waters.

Cascone was upon them before they even reached their desperate hands out to touch Cimbri's enticing legs. He was a red and yellow blur of martial mayhem, sending a host of hoogers to a watery grave before their lusty thoughts could even fully form.^{(24) 24 Cascone was, it should be remembered, enormous for his species, fully five times the weight of a full grown Goliathus Goliatus Albatus, at about 250 grams. Now, while entomologists will be quick to point out that Dicheros Bicornis is only loosely related to the true Rhinoceros Beetle, say, something along the lines of third cousins twice-removed, it can still be argued, and is being argued, that Cascone's relative strength was only nominally less than that of his distant kinsfolk. This means, in a nutshell, that he would be capable of lifting somewhere in the realm of 600 lbs and more than capable of taking on a horde of trailer trash and cleaning house.} He was a whirlwind of mandibles and wings, tossing his opponents around like ragdolls in a churning mess of bodies and limbs. Still, there were so many of them that he could not avoid taking a few cheap shots, including a cast-iron skillet to one of his legs, which shattered the appendage just before it was torn off by a bulb-nosed brute named "Lexington" (according to his caterwaulin', skillet-wielding momma). Unfortunately for Lexington, he was rewarded with a nostril full of pissed-off beetle, which didn't sit well with his frontal lobe. Lexington's mama was the next, and last, to fall, as Cascone disarmed her of her weapon and dislodged her consciousness with it.

"You are so very heroic," Cimbri said to her defender as the floating house crumbled into debris and sank to the bottom of the river.

Cascone felt very proud of himself, but was clearly exhausted. "Cimbri," he wheezed from his one good lung, ^{(25) 25 Which was, incidentally, on the other side of his body from his missing leg.} "we shall have to have lessons regarding who to trust and not trust, not to mention the differences between adoration and simple assault."

The night-hatted rook returned again.

"Speaking of assault," Cascone implied, though Cimbri did not comprehend the implication.

"Such a pretty bird," she chirped, taking, yet again, the proffered card, after which the bird fell asleep on its roost, whistling snores. ^{(26) 26 Or, more appropriately, snoring whistles, since whistling is a voluntary act and snoring an involuntary act, if one is not faking sleep, like the person lying next to you now.}

"Such a pretty card," she said, then, just prior to reading it, "it says": ^{(27) 27 I had hoped that it would go without saying that she then read the card, but your unwillingness to enter the flow of the narrative has forced my hand. So, she read:}

Cupid's arrows
Soon will fly
Like falling sparrows
Into the eye
You cannot escape

"It sounds like a love poem!" Cimbri said with a tone simply dripping with anticipation.

"That is no love poem," Cascone wheezed, limping. "It is a threat."

"Oh my," Cimbri said, "should I feel threatened?"

Cascone reared up on the hindmost pair of his six five legs. "I shall do my utmost to protect you, my child." ^{(28) 28 This is, of course, ludicrous. Beetles do not father humans. But the girl's extra legs do make one wonder. The sheer mechanics of it all, not to mention the breach of social taboos that Cimbri's mother would have to have taken, boggle the mind. Still, one does have to ask where Cascone's fierce dedication to the girl came from.} He wearily limped along the tree, looking for unseen danger.^{(29) 29 Which he could not see. I grow weary myself, having to explain everything to you.}

Only the slightest sound announced the arrival of the next hazard, a flutter of leaves as a primitive obsidian-headed arrow flew out from the trees up the river bank, tracing an arc just over Cimbri's head before skipping across the water and lodging itself in the opposite bank. The rook took flight, ^{(30) 30 And used it, too.} as did a volley of arrows from either side. Cascone deftly ^{(31) 31 Well, deftly for a handicapped beetle.} struck at the approaching arrows, diverting them from Cimbri's soft, supple flesh and into log, water, and riverbank.

All except one, which struck the hapless beetle directly in the center of his left eye. ^{(32) 32 That's center of left, not left of center, for you politically conservative types. There is no liberal bias that influenced the place where the arrow found its target, it simply did. Get over it.} This caused irreparable damage to his left brain hemisphere. He knew he must die soon, so he gathered his thoughts ^{(33) 33 Or, at least half of them.} and addressed Cimbri in a slurred wheeze, seeing that one lung had collapsed and the right side of his body was now paralyzed.

"Mah deah Shimbri. Ah am dyink. I shall not be lonk foh dis life. Lishen cayfully. You musht geh off dis rivah ash shoon ash poshible. Grave danker liesh ahead."

He rested on the log beside her.

"Poor, poor Cascone," she said, running her slender fingers along the crease of his wing casing. ^{(34) 34 Which lazily sagged on one side, due to the neurological damage that was worming its way through his entire brain.} "I know where I am going," she said as the roaring of a waterfall manifested itself from not far downriver. "And it is where I have always wanted to be. Your sacrifices were, I am afraid, utterly in vain. Had I not wanted to step out into the abyss, to explore the other side of the wall you call life and security and comfort, I would never have come down the River Zaar. But I shall not have known life until I know death."

She kicked the bug off into the river. He floated on his back, helplessly rushing ahead toward the waterfall. He comprehended a great deal in the moment he went over the edge, including the words of Cimbri as she, too, toppled over the edge toward the sharp rocks below:

"Cascone, you always were so very naïve."

Forrest's work has appeared in several venues including Asimov's, The Journal of Experimental Fiction, Exquisite Corpse, and 3rd Bed. His work is forthcoming in Gargoyle and Postscripts. Forrest's early fiction is collected in Fugue XXIX (Raw Dog Screaming Press). He is currently at work on a novel, tentatively entitled Sylostalgia. He is agented by Scribe Agency, who are currently "shopping around" his other novels. Forrest lives in Madison, WI, land of cheese, brats, and protest.

Bryan Prindiville is currently an Art Director for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) where he has also worked as a designer and illustrator since late 2000. In his free time he has had a hand in a number of webcomics including Bassetville and Hello with Cheese. Traditionally published work can be found in Rum and Runestones and Tee Morris' All a Twitter and others. Less traditionally he can be found as a member of the live art entertainment show Super Art Fight. More information and work are available at his sketch blog, bryanprindiville.com.

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