Perception
By Paul Tremblay

The thing is, the meaning of the story depends on your perception.

Let the record show…

"Eww, God! What the hell is this?" the woman yelled.

Her name isn't important to the story.

"What? Where?" a man, her husband, answered-name equally useless to what you get out of this tale.

SETTING: A pond speckled with camps and cottages and cabins and RV's and tents, surrounded by green mountains and miles of rural roads and equally rural people. None of that is really important to the story, either. Just dressing, trim, fat on the bone.

The man sidled up next to his wife, who had yet to step into the water. Gooseflesh rose on his skin as a late afternoon breeze reached across the pond.

The woman was bent and pointing at a red-lump and breathing harshly through her teeth. Whether she was frightened or just repulsed is unknown to the teller.

What is known…

"Is that a leech? Oh God, tell me it's not a leech," she said. Voice inflected and pitched high.

"Let me see. Nah, I don't think so. Leeches are black, sweetie." The man rubbed his left shoulder. Loons cried in the distance for no apparent reason.

He plucked two sticks from the sandy and debris-strewn shore and picked up the small, now squirming, red-lump.

INTERJECTION: We can surmise that the man didn't think it was a leech, but still wasn't too keen on touching the thing in question. Another person may have reacted differently.

"Oh God, be careful. Are you sure it's not a leech? What if it's just filled with blood?" she said while shuffling behind her husband.

That was the third time she'd invoked the name of a believed higher power. Yet, we are unable to conclude with certainty that she was deeply religious.

That may or may not be important to the story.

I digress…

The man held the writhing red-lump close to his face.

WHAT WE KNOW HE SAW: Two-inch long, plump, red body, two rows of pinhead sized legs, two antennae, two black-dot eyes, and a tan pincer/mandible.

But that information is still just garnish to the main course.

"I think it's a caterpillar, sweetie," he said, but the lack of enthusiasm in his voice would lead us to believe that there wasn't the conviction of true knowledge, or even belief, behind his words.

We know he was wrong, but that doesn't ruin the story. No sir-eee Bob.

POINT OF FACT: That was his perception. The red-lump being a caterpillar that is. A very important distinction, and more importantly, important to the story.

"Jesus, you're not throwing it in the pond, in where we're swimming, are you?" she screamed and folded her arms across her bosom. Again, despite the religious speak, we know nothing of her spiritual life. Nor do we care to. At least in terms of the story. I'm not saying that to be mean.

But there is a perception this woman has that is quite important to the story, and will be left to the reader. Don't worry, it should be painfully obvious when I finish.

"No, I'm throwing it into the bushes over there, where it can't hurt you," he said-with a thick sarcasm that has been verified by the top academes and students of the culture-and threw the lump, or in his mind, the caterpillar smack into a dying birch tree.

What happens next should already have been categorized and memorized.

WHAT WE KNOW HAPPENED: The lump, the caterpillar-really names representing faulty perceptions…but that leads to a problem we'll discuss at the end-landed inside an insect-eaten and fungi-worn crack of a sick birch tree. Lucky for us. 'Lucky' isn't a strong enough word, really. 'Miraculous' fits much better, but again, depending on your perception, maybe it doesn't. As I was saying…Lucky the lump had found the one galaxy, the one planet, with the correct atmosphere and climate, with the specified air pressure and temperature and dew point and pollen count. Lucky it had landed on the shore instead of the water-which, goes without saying, would've killed it instantly. Lucky a man threw it into the one form of vegetation with the right DNA, with the perfect ratio of healthy chloroplasts and recombinant fungi nuclei. Lucky, that-and we can call our creator, the progenitor, the great one, by its name now-BARRY had hit the fate lottery, had found the needle in the karmic haystack.

BARRY then simply laid the eggs, and of course, there was the great spawning that had lasted ages, and the feeding…

I'll stop there because we know that story.

Yes it's all powerful, heady stuff. You laughed and cried, and it became a part of you…

But I want you to try something new. Try thinking about that story, the oldest story, the story that if without there are no other stories… Think about the word of BARRY in the new light of perception.

Now I know this is radical thinking. The elders won't like it, nor will the priests, the shamans, or the TV executives. But bear with me here. I might have stumbled upon something.

See what you make out of this…

I'm no great philosopher. And I haven't composed a treatise or even a topic sentence. I'll just say it as simply as possible.

After pondering the plight of the man and the woman and BARRY, I got to thinking. Maybe-now I know this might sound crazy-there's times when there's no right or wrong, fact or fiction, smoking or non, caf or decaf. Maybe there's times when there's only different perceptions.

How else could one race's miracle be another's extinction?

The End

Story copyright Paul Tremblay, published by the Fortean Bureau
http://www.forteanbureau.com