Cimeon the Centipede was a warrior by sunlight. He knew the dawns and sunsets more than any other creature in the world. The 6 am light came slowly and quickly – when he blinked, it was gradual. When he closed his eyes, he heard the change - the
woooo-woo-woo disappearing into the silence of a terrible, communal mourning. The white stillness always brought terror, and terror, thought Cimeon, was when immediate death seemed too far away.
To Cimeon, everything was white. It did not matter whether Cimeon kept his eyes open or shut – either way he could not see a thing. Cimeon did not know he was blind because he did not know about sight – seeing with the eyes, that is.
I am ready. I am ready with my mulch hat and each of my hairy arms armed with swiftness. Cimeon was a Centitrist. He took care of the wounded when the trembles came. The old and the too-young and the cocoons and the fireflies – they were the ones who suffered the most. Cimeon was agile. He could curl into spirals and circles and, if so inclined, he could form a perfect rhombus. He was gifted in that way – flexible and lovely.
There was nothing to do but wait. There was no preparation. When it struck two dongs from a far away hollow sound, Cimeon felt the quick numbness appear. Each time, he never knew if it would let go its circle hold, not until the moment when he moved one leg into the green darkness, and the rest of him followed.
There was nothing wrong with this living because he knew of nothing else. And though he could get ulcers, depression, high blood pressure, heart attacks, and chronic diarrhea from the level of stress any Centitrist must constantly encounter, Cimeon was, after all, only a very small centipede.
He heard the first quiet tone like the sound of a stick beating on a blade of grass.
“I feel like I will die soon,” said Cimeon.
The drumming stopped
“Then I will play your funeral march,” replied a voice.
The sound of his laugh was like the sound of snow – silent and windy and cold. Chaool dropped his stick and his blade of grass and walked to the head of Cimeon.
“How silly of you, I thought the mourning was coming.”
“Exactly my intention.”
“You are a boob.”
“I am a Nuamh.” Said Chaool, wiggling his antennae
“Then to your duties, you boobish Nuamh.”
“Tut, tut, tut,” said Chaool, and whistling in three part harmony, ran away on his two peach feet.
Cimeon crawled towards the Sight. The Sight was where all the grass creatures gathered, over the bodies of the dead. Here there was a deprivation of color – Cimeon had insisted along with the elder creatures – that there would be nothing but green. Green, said the other creatures, was a peaceful color, a color of satiated thirst and of sleep and of choruses produced by shifting mud. Cimeon imagined green to be somewhat like the sound of a quiet crunch or the feeling of the smooth, deep line of the snail’s mark. In any case, green seemed reasonable so green it was – anything to ease the constant horror.
They waited for the trembles and formed assembly lines, that ended with a Cintritist. Cimeon’s line was a little different. It was a spiral. But they had to, in some way, distinguish the Emergency unit from the rest of the injury lines
Cimeon, turned to a nearby Nuamh. “Have you seen Chaool?”
“A minute ago.”
“He must return soon before soon.”
“I think so.”
Cimeon was not expecting them for at least another minute, which was enough time to slowly crawl home, fix a meal, and crawl back. Time ran more slowly for the centipedes and the Nuamhs than the Wonzingers because the Wongzingers were at least three times the size of the centipedes. It made sense, for time to be relevant and regarded based on size, how much a creature moved or could move, or how much energy it produced or how quickly and deeply one could run.
One minute was plenty of time for Cimeon to stitch up twenty centipede legs, two worm worts, and six dalungeers. Cimeon looked at the sky, then at the grass, then at the lines and thought, indeed, now one minute has passed and no Chaool. He thought about going to find him and decided against it, reasoning that his spiral would lose their confidence without their leader in position.
He was right – most of the Nuamhs were cowards, but not Chaool. Half of him was of a different birthright and perhaps that had given him his presence and future. Cimeon enjoyed internalizing his thoughts and forming an inner dialogue.
“Hello Cimeon”
“Hello Cimeon.”
“I had the most lovely brine today.”
“Is your mother still alive?”
“Almost seven days old.”
“lovely. Pieces of books are lovely.”
"Do we hear that, Cimeon?"
“Yes, It is time.”
From somewhere far above the tallest blade and far beyond the bending bush came the call. It sounded something like, “
reeeeeeeccccceeeeeeeessssssss!!!!”
Then the trembles came.
