STATEMENT OF CIRCE NAT: A TMA Fan Statement (2020)

hai ^-^ i wrote this way back in 2020... wow! feels like forever ago hehe.

WARNING: this story contains themes of death, decomposition, burrowing insects, and is generally kinda gross nasty. read at your own discretion!

I’ve always hated endings. As a young boy, I was quite the crybaby. If I enjoyed a book enough it really didn't matter whether the ending was happy or sad, I'd cry over the fact it was over. Sometimes, I would avoid the ending altogether. Just shut the book and never open it again. I suppose… that is what I am doing now. I’ve postponed reading my own ending.

Though, I assume you do not care much for my motivations, do you? No, you just want me to lay out the chapters of my book. Let you read and consume. I will give you this, but you must understand how much of a gift this is. I will let you know me while I know little of you. I will play the subject of your investigation because I understand the hunger of a scholar.

I’d moved to America to do some studies, you see. I’m an entomologist and an avid one at that. There's simply so much to learn about bugs; the discoveries are endless. My curiosity with creepy-crawlies led me to move across the Atlantic in hopes of encountering living specimens I hadn’t chanced a glance at before. Did you know not a single species of honeybee is native to North America? Ah well, that's beside the point.

I’d found myself looking into insect decomposers. That itself is a wide field, but I was looking into more specifically the carnivorous sort. Maggots are the first type to come to mind, but there's really only so many pale, feeding worms you can watch before you become… bored. There's so much more to decomposition than just maggots and flies. Ants, beetles, even wasps… they will come for you when you die. Unless that is, the coroners come first. I’m getting ahead of myself, let me backtrack.

My research at the time was conducted by finding wild animal specimens in various states of decay and just watching. Collecting as much information as possible about location, species, amount of decomposers, etc. Essentially, I stared at those pale, pale worms all day.

Even before I got bored, I really never enjoyed the maggot work. It was off-putting and disgusting. They just silently devoured. Soundlessly writhed. For the first week, I’d felt constantly unnerved. Avoided meals, scratched at every itch, jumped at every brush against my skin. I was paranoid about the maggots, though I can’t really blame myself.

All this quickly became a thing of the past as the novelty wore off. The maggots no longer filled me with fear, only this terrible despair. All things end, and when they end they will be consumed without a sound. They not only cease, but cease to be, at the hands of something so quiet it may have itself not been there. Even flies do not buzz until they are leaving, flying away.

Ants are more or less the same, but something was comforting about how they pulled apart then spirited away their goods. At least the remains could travel one last time. These fallen creatures would get a short epilogue to their story. Still, what is an epilogue if not a second ending?

The ants did not inspire my hope, no. I owe that to the beetles. Beetles are always an excitement for me. They are many, both in kinds and numbers. When discovering what seems like an undocumented species, one ought to be elated, but mostly unsurprised. That was exactly how I felt when I found… no. No, that's not it. That was exactly how I’d felt when they found me. My beetles.

I had stumbled upon what I’d thought was a deer carcass. It was certainly a deer, and it was swarmed with those dreadful worms. I figured it must have died fairly recently since the whole thing was intact. The first peculiar thing I’d noticed was I couldn’t find any obvious cause of death, despite how new it looked. Since the body was intact I had already ruled out a predator attack. There weren't any hunters in these woods as far as I could tell. And even if there were hunters, I couldn’t imagine them abandoning a catch like this.

The second peculiar thing, which I noticed when trying to get a better look, was the slight rise and fall of its chest. The deer… heaved, it was heaving in these shallow breaths. It must have been able to hear me because it looked at me. It lifted its head just slightly and looked at me.

I was so startled to find it was alive that I- ah, I ran off. Not far, I just went away to lose my lunch and catch my breath. Things are always scary when we see them for the first time. It takes a great deal of acclimating and adjusting to be comfortable with what we find weird. And well, studying the weird is my whole job; so I went back.

The deer had hardly moved, still just lying there. My plan was to settle down at a distance and take some notes on the deer itself. Later I could pass them onto a better-suited zoologist. However, after a few minutes, I realized the deer was completely still. It no longer heaved, it had made no move to look at me since my return. Bracing myself, I crept closer. It was dead. Properly dead this time.

The usual maggot-despair hit me quite strongly at that moment. Here had been a creature on its deathbed, living its story’s final pages, and I had just run off. I could have at least tried to help, done something, anything at all, but now it was gone. The maggots ate soundlessly away.

It was then that I noticed a third peculiar thing. Some… feeling, welled up in my chest. This sense of relief, o-of hope or perhaps curiosity. The feasting of the carcass was far from silent. It's so funny how details like that just sort of escape you. The air was full of sound. All buzzing and clicking, this cacophony of life all emanating from death.

I moved much, much closer to the deer now. Aside from the maggots, there were swarms and swarms of flies. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, and they weren't leaving. No running off for other food: they seemed to think they had all they needed right there. How so many could even gather around something that freshly rotten was beyond me.

The source of the clicking was some peculiar looking beetles. No… beautiful looking beetles. No, just, different looking beetles. Special ones. Their anatomy was so strange, so unlike anything I’d ever seen before, but I could still recognize they were beetles.

They were feeding on the rotten meat, same as the maggots. Their shells were colored a shifting black and blue. The slime of the meat made them glisten. I watched as one shuddered and folded in on itself. It curled up into something quite compact, then very slowly, still rolled up, it kept walking. They made this wonderful clicking noise. It was the hypnotic drumbeat of the deer’s buzzing song. Oh, you should really get a good look at a beetle. Hear it for yourself. Their click, click, clicking.

That song, the beautiful sound of life, it was what lifted my melancholy. That deer’s story did not end. These marvelous beetles picked right up where the deer had left off. I loved the beetles for that. I could tell the beetles loved the deer.

I cried then. The whole ordeal had my emotions running quite high already, but the beetles. God, I don't mean to ramble about them but I just want you to understand. They are a salvation from the end. My salvation. No more stories have to end. That is my hope, someday I will ensure that no stories have to end.

I couldn't ignore the role the flies played in the song either. If the beetles were the percussion then the flies were the screaming choir. I felt… guilty for my past hate. Maggots are still learning creatures. Growing creatures. Even if I had such a distaste for them, I could at least anticipate their buzzing forms.

In my hysterical fit of tears, I apologized. I howled out apologies and wailed declarations of forgiveness. I threw myself into their embrace. I curled my arms around the deer, arms sinking into the oozing meat. My head rested upon its torso. The maggots squirmed against my cheek and latched onto me in a hug of their own. I sobbed a melody with the flies as they swarmed me. I hiccuped in rhythm with the beetles’ clicks.

The beetles perfect, musical clicks. They were the base of the whole song, the cause of something so hopeful. I learned their song, and I sang it with them. They have given me a gift so great, so beautiful. My story has been written off the pages. I am in an epilogue that never ends.

They sing many more sorts of songs to me now. They sing to me songs of danger. They croon messages of love. They sang to me and told me of your name, archivist. They seem to know you. Do you know them? Do you hear their songs?