The Caterpillar Caught the Bus

**This is a fictional piece of writing and the characters do not reflect any one person or event specifically but are rather a collection and metaphorical entanglement of characters, stories, conversations, emotions, thoughts**


Dear Caterpillar,

I told you I used to sneak into the neighbours’ garden. I would climb the wood stack beside the shed, climb over and land in their cubby house. I didn’t have a cubby house. I would play in their sandpit. If I was lucky, other children would be in it. Until Mum turned up after frantically knocking on all the neighbours’ doors trying to work out who I had visited this time. She was busy with my sister. I was three and I had lots of questions. I wanted someone to talk to and someone to tell stories with.

We pretended I was in your garden. I watered your old Polish roses. You passed me out some fruit and nut chocolate, and a sparkling water with an umbrella in it. I liked the way you saw the stars from a sideways gaze. You told me something of your tears, and you were not even sure how it came out. It was like voodoo, you said. You wouldn’t be the first to say so.

I snuck into your garden. I wanted to someone to talk to. Someone to tell stories with.

Yesterday I lived with a girl. She once brought me coloured straws to sip through, all tied up in brown string. She bought another friend a hammock. She doesn’t keep cutlery in the top drawer. I like her a lot. She’s my friend. A month of settled bliss with a dog rolling around on our coriander, eating stolen figs and riding bikes to school. But today she said she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore, and I don’t know why.  

And my sister across the ocean lost her baby. Again.

And a woman came to ask for a pill. She couldn’t bear to lose any more.

Another didn't want to take hers anymore. Her son had decided to leave this world. Her other was taken. She thought maybe she could make another one. She didn’t know what else to do.

I didn’t take a breath.

I saw you and knew I’d known you before.

I met you for coffee. I couldn’t have coffee. I needed a breath.

We walked through the garden and you talked of worlds I knew and didn’t know. Did I respond? I don’t know. My mind was hyperventilating and I couldn’t quite hear. I walked the wrong way. And then again. Did I say anything back? The hair on your head was blonde, and in your beard it was ginger. “Are you confident?” you asked. I thought I was. Where was I? My backpack was almost bigger than me and I suddenly felt very tiny in my small high-top sneakers. You had headphones around your neck and sparkle in your eye. You waited for me to tell a story. Sounds came out. Were there words? You saw a gnome. The rooster I’d promised to show you wasn’t as big as I remembered it. Or maybe that was just because you were so tall? I felt so small on this stage.

The bus pulled away. The black jeans and denim shirt weren’t standing there with your small brown book after it did.

I didn't need a breath. I needed to breath out. Long and deep. And in again. And out again. Did I respond? 

Too late.

My friend wants to know why I’m not angry at the friend who gave me the straws. She was almost crying saying that if I won’t get angry for myself, she feels she has to do it for me. Everyone is angry for me and at each other.

But I’m not angry.

I’m crying. For the questions I don’t get to ask and the answers I don't get to hear. For the hands I’ve held in mine that are too far away to grasp. I’m crying because she’s not okay. I’m crying for your black dog and the stories that brought you to your knees. For my sister across the ocean.  I’m crying because my friend around the corner can’t get out of bed. Because she’s crying too. For the days my Mum couldn’t get out of bed. For the Polish roses and brown dog I may never meet. The garden I didn’t get to play in.

I just wanted to talk. Someone to tell stories with.

I wanted to tell you I’ve changed so many times since this morning. But you sat on the mushroom, your pipe puffing. And you didn’t ask “and who are you?” Or did you? Did I respond?

My Granny once told a boy I love he was allowed to lie to me, as long as it was a good one. I love him and his heart and his good lies. He knows how many times I have changed since this morning. My Granny had tea with yours. She told me not to worry - you’re just a sensitive boy. She said I remind her of the son she lost. 

She just wanted to talk. Someone to tell stories to.

We said goodbye. And then she was gone. I still write her letters. I just don’t know where to post them to.

There’s a current that runs through all of us. From one life to the next, he said. If you have met before, it will light up the night sky for a moment. Like the sky above your sand dune. He said he tries so hard to hold onto the light, because he knows it will be black again soon. He's the space between the stars and one day that space will swallow him whole. I told him he was a star lighting up the dark spaces. That sunlight will always run faster than moonlight. He said those words were like being able to hear your own music for the first time. 

You never get to hear your own song for the first time.

This is how I heard it.

Ruby.