The Amber Key

The soft white flakes swirl. The earth is cold, cold beneath me. I slumber, bereft of light, bereft of warmth. The long nights take their toll, and I watch the world die around me. Deep into the earth my roots run, seeking, striving. This season, this unending time of frost. When will the sun return?

The shortest days will soon arrive. I remember this, deep in my roots, I remember the hardship of the shortest days. Unending monotony, fearful of falling, of feeding the earth.

I am aware and I am free, but I am not like you. I do not walk the world, I do not decide with great leaps of insight or feral instinct. Where to grow? Where to grow? This is the question, paramount, where and how and when to grow. I am not like you.

Yet I listen, I feel. I know the world around me and I love it. I hate it. I fear it. A fox trots past and I know his footsteps, feel his urine, soak up his scent. I hear the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker resound in the silence of the snow. The little mouse in his den beneath my roots, I feel him stirring in endless sleep.

I witness the great dramas going on around me daily, even as the world dies. The quick death of the sparrow in the owl’s taloned embrace. The slow death of the insects as they succumb to the cold. The romances of the wolves, the great chases and kills. The start of new life.

The events I wish to tell you began with the soft touch of feet, back when the days had just begun to shorten. I felt his feet on me, his ladybug feet, strong and masculine despite the effeminate name of his kind. He was young, I could tell. Newly adult, he had shed his pupal case. The surety in his step betrayed his youth; he knew his whole life stretched before him.

I remembered his family. The memories were there, stored in my roots. His father and mother were hatched and lived nearby, and often I watched them in their hunt for food and their flitting dance. I can see them in him, though they are old and will likely not survive the sunless time. In the high heat he was welcomed into his tribe, blessed by his people and given dominance over the lesser creatures. To hunt the afids and mites, to protect the shelter-trees, to mate with a female of the tribe. His life was ripe, to live and die as one of thousands, an ancient line.

I felt him alight upon me one day. The young male, his sure steps identifying him. I was languid, warmed by the fading light. Curious. I noticed him. He stood, held fast in the breeze, for a long time. It seemed unnatural. When he flew away at dusk my curiosity grew. In the early hours of night, as I lay withdrawn, I felt another ladybug alight on me. Her steps were timid, unsure in the darkness. I had never noticed her before and her scent was sharp and piney, unfamiliar to me. She, too, was young, and she waited but a short while before taking off in a desperate flight out of the darkness.

The nights grew longer and the birds began to leave for the south before I saw either of them again.

She came first, her soft wings buzzing, slowing, withdrawing under her hard, polished shell. The weeks had been kind, and she was radiant. Any sense of clinging adolescence was gone, and her beauty was now startling to behold. Her steps, too, were assured, soft, clinging to me as lightly as petals in autumn cling to the bud.

I heard him before he touched me, his strong wings fast and powerful, and as he gripped me he withdrew them into his armored shield. They stood close, so close, watching each other with heated eyes. In an instant, he sprung forward, his thick legs carrying him quickly to her. He mounted her, but she kicked him off, and they both began to dance in a flurry of movement. He caught her, and she fell to a branch below, fell on him to break the fall. I felt his shell impact, but his grip was strong. As they righted themselves, I felt her melt, and in an instant she surrendered.

They moved together, again and again, long into the day, until cool shadows threatened to envelope me. When they separated, it was decisive, sharp. I felt their lack when they flew away. Yet they returned, and on my branches they copulated again and again, their passion dimming even that of the rest of their kind. There was a fierceness to them that I had never seen, and it touched me to bear witness. In the enveloping change of season, they found love.

The long darknesses came and the snow began to fall, white ash from the eternal greyness above. The birds had gone, except for some few who remained in sickness or stubbornness, attempting to wait out the snow. Mammals slept in their dens, and the insects retreated to their family lairs, entered their special communal hibernation. I felt the first lone ladybugs die around me, their bodies freezing in the cold. I bore witness, and in my way, I said goodbye. I knew it was foolish to hope I would see the speckled lovers over those long nights. The heat of their movement would not thaw my icy limbs, for they slept the coldness away.

Yet despite my assurity, I was drawn from my sluggish stupor one hazy, snow-fallen day by the sound of buzzing wings. The lovers landed on me, their movements slow. He moved close to her, but did not mount, and her delicate shell drew inward as she huddled next to him. They stood this way, wreathed in falling flakes, and the world was quiet. Yet soon their heat stirred, and they began to move together in the familiar way they had. It was time suspended, a moment that lasted days. Snow fell, and they consummated their love. In time, he slowed, and they crouched again in stillness. Life was, and I watched.

I have not seen the ladybugs since then. I only hope they are sleeping, dreaming, waiting to awake. The shortest days are here, and the land is dull and empty. The wind carries a sodden sense of sorrow, and the deep creatures of the earth draw together tightly. We wait for spring, and the return of the sun.

Ladybugs, lovers, and I.

(Written by request, based on this photograph, chosen by random selection.)