An Impasse with No Way Out

An Impasse with No Way Out


Alexandr Piatkov



A horde of huge green caterpillars crawled from a large neighboring plot into a

tiny little garden. Remarkably, while other animals and insects somehow react to

a human presence, these silent creatures are completely consumed by their task.

They fulfill their mission, utterly indifferent to those around them, be they

friends or foes.


A large green caterpillar with a saber-like tail, one of this countless host, lay

perfectly still among rotting logs and fallen leaves. One might have thought it

dead, but as the midday heat set in, it warmed up, began to show signs of life,

and finally started to explore the surrounding space with growing activity.


It showed absolutely no interest in the carefully prepared fresh, juicy leaves of

apricot, viburnum, mulberry, and lilac. Instead, the crumbling fragments of half-

decayed branches became the subject of its most meticulous scrutiny. Deftly

moving the coils of its powerful flesh beneath its green skin, the caterpillar

squeezed into the most inaccessible places, trying to break through the most

impassable thickets. One could feel such pressure behind its movements that the

entire heap of debris stirred. It was a real struggle, like a match on a tatami

mat; at last, it crawled into what seemed an utterly hopeless, dead-end impasse

and grew still.


Presumably, the logic of what was happening was to crawl until any further

movement became completely impossible—and that is a touch;! The finale of the

struggle in this incarnation. Next will come the pupation process, followed by

metamorphosis and transformation into a butterfly.


Is this not how, in its own whimsical way, its highly developed fellow creature

crawls through life, imagining itself the owner of some garden, until it hits a

final impasse from which there is no turning back? For that matter, an entire

dacha cooperative—much like a population of caterpillars—can also crawl into a

dead end, but will a saving metamorphosis ever happen to it?


P.S. It has pupated. First, the green color of its skin began to turn yellow,

then, starting from the tail, it began to shift into a light brown, and finally,

again from the tail, it began to acquire a rich chocolate hue, even developing a

gloss.


The whole process took two days, accompanied by several convulsive changes in

body curvature and rolling from side to side. Yet just two days ago, this

powerful organism of destruction stripped bare all the trees—objects far stronger

and larger than itself. Sic transit gloria mundi.




PUBLICATION DETAILS / СВЕДЕНИЯ ОБ ОПУБЛИКОВАНИИ
Original Author: Alexandr Piatkov / Автор оригинала: Александр Пятков
Original Title: Непроходимый тупик (An Impasse with No Way Out)
Year of Composition: 2014
Certificate of Publication: No. 214081100257 / Свидетельство о публикации №214081100257
Translated from Russian by AI Assistant / Перевод с русского языка: AI-ассистент
Publication Platform: proza.ru
© Copyright: Alexandr Piatkov, 2014