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English Major 2010 - Short Stories

Welcome to our homepage. Here we publish the results of our Short Story Project / 1st term.
Click on our faces to see what each of us has achieved.

Working can be so horrible! Always carrying something around and always watching out that everyone is happy. In this job you are responsible for the others and for the tidiness and the order in the houses; they also build new tunnels or new rooms for the government. Working without interruption is their force they could haul the tenfold weight of their own body. This force is very convenient, because there is no time to have a break or to be ill, or to be unmotivated for work. Working is their life-device.

But there is one thing, of that everybody is hacked off: always to be the smallest and ugliest thing of the world. Everything is taller and more powerful than them. Everybody hates them, because they are scurrying around. Everywhere you look you can find them and they like to get some crumbs of the taller and more powerful ones.

One day when they all drove to work as normal, the traffic was really horrible. The streets were full of cars and everyone got angry and shouted to the others. It was clear that everyone wanted to go to work and really needed to go to work, because it was such an important day. This day the government would come to the city and control the work of them. If somebody had not gone to work and had not been able to represent his project then the government would have closed this group and many workers would have lost their job.

Finally when they all got to work and were very nervous waiting for the government he sat behind his huge, brown table and smoked a cigar. There were too many thoughts and worries in his head, that he could not think about his job. He stood up and looked out of the window. From the twentieth floor he looked down at all the people in their cars hurrying to their work. He was lucky, because he was flown to work by his helicopter.

In the last time he often thought about to stop working. But he could not! Without work he would have no life! He was a real workaholic! He could not change this. From the beginning it was clear, that he would become as his father and work so hard. Because of this hard working there was no time for family or private life.

Suddenly, while he was looking down, someone knocked on his massive, dark-brown door.

He sat down on his big chair and said: "come in".

She came in and was talking with an assistant. Her face, her body, her long legs, she was so beautiful that he always did not know what to say.

"Good morning, my majesty", he said and his face went red, while he was looking down on the ground. "Good morning, sir", she answered. He stood up and went forward to shake hands with her. He gave her a place in front of his table and sat down again on his chair. She was talking the most of the time and he was listening carefully. After she left his office he was still sitting on his chair and in his head he began to realize that she had left his office again, as she did it every year again. He always wanted to ask her to go with him to dinner, but how stupid was it to ask his boss for dinner?

A few days later he went to work as every morning and there was not one thought about her, because he was concentrated too much on his new project, which he would represent next year. And on this day he will meet her again. But for then, working was the most important thing.

It was Friday afternoon and you could not imagine how hungry I was. I was peering at this mouth-watering cheeseburger for a while now. My entire body was obsessed with the smelly food. My sensory perception was very distinctive. I troubled to control every part of my little cockroach-body. I tried to creep around, because I did not want to think about the delicious-looking burger anymore. But this special aroma commanded my legs, my feet, my abdomen, my brain, my thoughts and even my hearing organ. I was not able to concentrate on conversation. Should I take just a little piece of the delicacy? No one would notice. Meanwhile the well-known discussion between devil and angel took place in my head. The devil inside me was greedy and was not interested in effecting a compromise. The angel wanted to argue me out of stealing some fiddling burger. But my craw triumphed. "Sorry, guys, has someone seen my cheeseburger?", asked one of my classmates. I answered in the negative with a full mouth.

“Going to be late tonight.” The light was already dimming and the big, grey clouds had turned into a black, frightening colour. Lora felt very chilly suddenly. It seemed as if the short summer already was over again and that the winter was going to come soon. And the winter is a terrible time for flies. The small recess Lora lived in with her parents wasn’t chosy at all. Lora didn’t like it anyway: Everything was so grey and normal in there. “Grey and boring, like my whole life!” She sighed and already felt bad about that thought, that she actually had very often lately. It wasn’t that they had nothing or her parents were sad and poor. Not at all, -they actually loved their lives, were satisfied with their situation and loved Lora. “But they are just so boring…”, Lora couldn’t help thinking. Like all flies her parents were reporters, who spent all day surrounding greater creatures and searching for information about those with their big mulitfunctional eyes. It was a hard, exhausting job and they didn’t even got money for it. But which other job should have those ugliest of all livings, who were just hated by everyone else, done? Only very few times Lora allowed herself of dreaming to be someone different. Something the Guineas. Lora sighed again. She better should hurry, if she didn’t want to risk serious trouble at home. And so the tiny creature danced and travelled through the air and finally arrived at home.

Lora woke up the next morning in a very good mood. Today she would visit the Guineas again, because she was about to write a report about them. Carefully she creeped in the kitchen, gulped down a sip of breakfast, balanced and then shouting a”good-by, I’m off to work” while jumping out in the air and gliding towards the big center.

Lora loved watching the Guineas. They were so pretty, charming and glamouros in her eyes. Slowly she floated and than approached the shining cage of the Guineas, who obviously were still sleeping. Lora hesitaded a short moment, but than suddenly was magically attracted by what the Guineas were famous for: Their excrements. “What are you little fit up to?” Lora turned fearfully her head: The biggest one of the Guineas, the black Guinea Sam was facing her! “Oh erm…I’m just”, quickly Lora thought of anything to say,” You know I am a reporter! I collect information about such great, adorable livings, like you are!” The Guinea smiled pleased at the last words. “But actually”.Lora didn’t know if she ever would get a chance to talk to the Guineas again. (They usually didn’t talk to insects) and so the words just came spilling out of her,”I don’t always want to report about the VIPs! I want to be a VIP myself! And than other people shall report about me!” For one moment there was total silence, as if Sam just needed a while to realize what Lora just had said, but than, finally, the big, black Guinea bursted into a terrible loud laugh. It laughed so hard that tears were rolling out of its cheeky, black eyes:” Hahahaha! I like you! You want to be like us, right? Well I guess that fits perfect, doesn’t it? Hahaha…!” It still was shuddering with laughter as on of the others, the famous white Guinea-Lady Sara appeared, obviously finally woken up by the laughter: “What is going on here? And what is this nasty creature doing in our house? Sam!?” Sara peered at Sam, who seemed repending: “I am just having a bit of fun with my new best mate. It was so boring and she was actually a good diversion!” Lora feeling akward hurried to say: “I understand, it’s early in the mornig. I don’t want to disturb you. But please, can I come back tomorrow?” “If you really want to and Sam isn’t annoyed of you, sure you can! But now you better get off here!” Sara didn’t need to say that twice. “Wow, thank you!” Lora laughed and jumped up, danced through the air and flew through the open window out of the house. Lora couldn’t remember ever feeling so great in her life. She actually had talked to the Guineas and she was allowed to come back tomorrow! The rest of the day Lora spent hellicoptering through the air, dreaming of her great future as one of the Guineas.

The next morning however, she didn’t hear the bell and was woken up by her dad: “Get up my Sussy-Bussy!” “What?..I am not!-What is the time?” Lora jumped out of her bed. She had planned to arrive early at the cage today, “I need to go! It’s important!” “Calm down”, her mother appeared,”this here is important, too. It is the fist day in October, remember? On this day traditionally the parents teach their children important lessons for their lives! And we wanted to show you some techniques of being a reporter today!” Lora stared at her genouros smile. “No mum, I can’t. I don’t want to be a reporter, ok? I never want to end up like you! I mean look at you: Everybody hates you! You are the ugliest livings on the lowest level of creation! But I don’t want that! I am going to be one of the great ones! Let me go!” Lora pushed her back and made her way through the door. She flew faster than she ever had before. She didn’t want to hear the shouting of her parents ordering her to come back, nor did she want to think about what she just had said and done. She just wanted to fly faster and faster.

Lora absolutely had no breath when she arrived at the cage. She hesitated trying to swallow down her fears and her exhaustion. “Hello”, she still sounded very awkward, “Hello, I am back! Where are you?” “Shut up!” The nose of the white Guinea-Lady  Sara appeared. “Are you actually thinking we want you here? That was fun yesterday! You can’t be like us! You are just not the same level, understand?!” Lora couldn’t believe what she was hearing: “But I want to live with you and be as glamouros like you and be loved by everyone, like you are!” Slowly Sara’s face turned into surprise: “You want to be like us? I don’t get that, honestly! I envy you! You can go and fly wherever you want to, while we are stuck in this nasty cage! Yes, we are adored by all the insects, because of our excrements! That’s nothing I would wish to anybody! We always have to fulfill the expections of everyone! But what do you gain of being adored when you are stuck? And you don’t even know how lucky you are! And now get out of here! You have the freedom!” Lora couldn’t  think of anything to say and so she just turned around and hovered our of the cage. Then however many things happened very quickly. First Lora heard a terrible loud noise, than the Guinea squaked extremly loud, but than Lora realized what it was squeaking about. A terrible, death-bringing fly-clap was approaching her very quickly. Only because of her mulitfunctional eyes Lora managed to get away at the last moment an than the fly-clap smashed down exactly where she had sat one secound ago. She breathed hysterically and tried to flee away as fast as she could, but again and again the enourmos fly-clap  fell down left an right to her. “ Mom! Dad! Help!” Lora cried still trying to escape the monster, that was hunting her. But no one was there.

It all was too much for Lora: Everything since the fight in the morning came over her and now she just let go; stopped flying and fell on the ground. The hunter obviously thinking he had killed the fly smiled and moved away. But Lora was not killed yet. There was still life in her.

“Darling, darling, wake up!” Lora didn’t want to wake up, she just had a wunderful, comfortable dream about gliding trough a sea of flowers. “I found her! Come over here!” Lora felt shuddering again. “Please, please, baby, don’t do that to me!” The dream was fading. Lora grumbled and finally opened her big eyes. “Where am I?” But then she suddenly remebered. Lora never had felt so shameful: She had shouted at her parents, was gone and now almost died! But they still were here to save her. Lora couldn’t help crying: “Mum, I am so sorry! I was such a stupid character! All the terrible things I said, -they are not true! But I understood now! I always wanted to be adored and loved by everyone and I looked down at what you and dad do. But why are we always thinking that those, who are adored by everyone are happy? They are not, because they are not free to do what they like, because they thinke they just need to be loved by everyone for it. But that’s not what life is about! Its’s about yourself, that you can be happy and free! You don’t need the admiration of others and I pity those who think they need it! I am so sorry; can you forgive me?” Her parents nodded and hugged their child. “You are my baby! I love you, so we don’t need the love of others!” Lora’s mum kissed her, smiled and held our a hand. “What’s about a big family trip over the park? I guess that was enough lesson for today!” She bliked at her husband, but Lora already had taken her hand and so the family flew over the park over the wide ocean of beatiful flowers. They felt as they were the richest creations on earth.

It sat on a leaf, very quietly, only its transparent wings which were a net of minute veins vibrating now and then. The elongated body was coloured in green and blue and glittered in the sunshine. Suddenly the vibration got stronger and it rose into the air: it seemed to fall, but after a moment it started to glide over the deep blue water of the lake, sparkling and iridescent in its perfect beauty. Sometimes it touched the water with its small legs, but as fast as it danced down, it floated up again and found its balance to start another skating movement. For a moment it hesitated, the wings immovable, then it flew onto a new leaf. Its head was black; the large multifaceted eyes and also the mandible were striking. Take the wings away and it looked like a kind of a needle, a darning-needle perhaps.
A butterfly was fluttering around the blooms near the water.
When the curtain went up and she began to dance, the audience always held its breath. It seemed as if a fairy-tale character was hovering on stage. Her body looked fragile in the gleaming costume. It was a magical effect she achieved by her immense beauty which made her famous and admired. When the rehearsal was finished, the few students who had been sitting in the hall went out. She began to watch the blonde girl who danced the other leading character in the ballet. This girl was full of cheerfulness, but far away from being beautiful like her. Pretty she was. Never serious, always at least smiling. There was nothing she hated more than cheerfulness. Her face suddenly had a cruel expression. Later in the evening they all dressed up for the real performance. The blonde girl standing next to her had just closed her dress, when the director came in. He talked, made a joke. They had to laugh. She saw the body in front of her vibrating from laughing and heard a sudden noise: the dress tore up right near the girl’s throat. The music had already started, the other dancers went out of the room, directly onto the stage. The first scene was not the solo-dancer’s one. The director was still there, talking. “You’ll do brilliantly, I know!”, he told her. “Good luck.”,  to the laughing person in front of her. He went out. There was a harsh light in this room where they both were standing now and this light was also reflected by the mirrors around them. These lights made her dizzy, and in this moment the room changed, seemed to be much older than before --- she was back years ago in one of her first dancing-classes. A look in one of the mirrors showed herself as a plain girl with a pair of glasses, moving very clumsily. Around her only graceful girls, most of them blonde and pretty.  She almost had to cry when she saw this contrast again and again…
But she had become more graceful than any of these persons, today she could not be compared to the clumsy girl… She was back in the here and now and saw the blonde girl watching her. It had stopped laughing. The mirrors seemed to distort both their faces, so they seemed to be equal, there was no difference anymore…
“May I help you repair your dress with this needle?”, she asked, smiling. The girl agreed gratefully.
The ballet was a great success--she was the celebrated star. She loved to be admired and the cruel expression was drained from her face. People gasped when they saw her--she was too beautiful. The blonde girl could not dance this evening. She had collapsed and the doctor later diagnosed an overdose of heroin. It might be also interesting that the girl had not been addicted before. Her delicate throat was green and blue.
The lake was glinting in the sunshine and the glittering insect glided onto a leaf and sat down. Could it remember its own metamorphosis?
The butterfly was gone.

Like every day she crept to this place. Her place. Where she spent most of her time watching the others running around, while she just squatted there and was realized by no one. She looked exactly like the wood she sat on. It seemed as if she held her forearms like one does in prayer. She was longer than the most of her species and that was why she had this feeling of not belonging to them. She looked kind of strange and was relieved that she had this possibility to disguise herself nearly perfectly. She did not want to attract attention – in fact she hated it. But if she did not hide herself by camouflage it was inevitable to catch someone’s eye because she clearly stuck out of the crowd. So she tried all the time not to be noticed by anyone and to live a lonely life without anyone harming her.

There she is. This unremarkable girl, sitting on the bench in the park, her coat the same colour as her hair and the bench. Every time I pass, I am astonished how perfect the tones harmonise. She seems as if she was part of this setting. I wonder if I am the only one who realises her. Everyone else goes by not even looking at her. I have to admit, that she is really inconspicuous, but she has something fascinating, something special. It is difficult to express what it is but I cannot pass by without looking, nearly staring at her. Her eyes, with the same colour as her hair, coat and bench as well, are really big in comparison to the rest of her face. But it does not look ugly, in fact it is extraordinary, but I like it. I would nearly say that I love it. That I love the way of her shy gaze, which I get every time I come along. That I am fascinated by her whole appearance, the way she holds her arms, the way she sits there with her much too large body. I want to go to her, to ask her who she is, why she sits there at every moment I cross this park.

Lost in thought I go on thinking about this strange girl which has obsessed even my dreams for a few days, which is really scary. At the end of the park I stop. I turn around and go back, determined to speak to her. But when I reach the bench she is gone.

I start to run. I take every path I can find in the whole park, I stop at every bench hoping to find her there. But it seems hopeless. Not knowing where I am I sag down on the grass.

She realised that he gave up. But she had to get away from here, to go somewhere else, where he would never be able to find her. So she took one last glance around the park, sighing in resignation and started to race. She had no particular destination, she just wanted to get as far away as her legs would let her. She knew that she would never find someone like him. But that was why she could not stand the thought to hurt him – to kill him – to eat him. She hated to be like that, she hated all of her species to be like that. But what could she change? Nothing.

Completely exhausted and overstrained she collapsed at the end of the day and never stood up again.

A shadow fell on the ground beneath his feet when a cloud moved below the sun. There was a heavy feeling of tension in the air as he was walking slowly but determinedly with his bony limbs moving rhythmically to his motion. All around him there was crawling and gliding at different speeds, melting to an unreal bulk in his sensoring. He knew it was time to get going, so he fastened his pace. What he was about to do was nothing ordinary. It had been haunting him ever since he had first heard of it. He wasn't the only one thinking about doing it, it had been done before. Scurrying forwards without paying much attention he bumped into different kinds of beings, some smaller, some larger than him, feeling his flimsy body shiver each time. After a while he started climbing a building of wood and leaves, knowing where to go intuitionally almost like in a dream. Suddenly he spotted her through a mist of green and gold, her sharp features becoming even more attractive to him as he realised her dangerous beauty being just a few feet from him.

He hesitated, moved his foot forward, then moved it back again. He decided to take a closer look at his prey. She was much larger than him, her strong hands folded to something that looked like a praying position. She looked so innocent to him, a mere plaything to an unknowing spectator. But he had heard the tales of those who escaped from her cold grasp, about the pleasure and lust followed by a crash of no comparison.

There weren't many who could tell of their encounter with her, but those who did would warn him of her lovely disguise. But he had been planning this moment for a long time, knowing of the dangers, but helpless against her deadly attraction.

He felt as if it had been ages since he had entered the room in which she lay. There was barely any furniture in the room, only a single table stood in the middle of it, and there she was. The gaze upon her made him dizzy, he couldn't help himself, staring at her, walking slowly towards the table. He was looking at the pointed end of the needle when all of a sudden a feeling of terror arose in his mind. His arms and legs were shivering, his face wet with sweat. He felt like turning around, running away from her. But his legs wouldn't let him. He fought against himself, feeling every muscle in his body pull together, his heart pumping unnaturally fast and a cold shiver running down his back. With each step his feelings grew larger. When he reached the table, glancing at her once more, his mind was racing. He had to stop, he would just turn around and run away. His hand reached for the needle. When he grabbed for her, he felt her coldness in his whole body. As he held her up in front of him, he looked at her for a last time. He now felt sure he wouldn't do it. Then he pushed the needle in. Within seconds, he fell to the ground and before his head crashed on the ground, he was gone.

The sun began to rise behind the trees, which grew around her small house. She stood up at 5 am, like every single day. And like every other single day she would drive downtown to the central market in town to purchase fruit and vegetables for her uncle´s grocery store. She never even thought about doing something else. She was kind of born into the family business. Since she was a little kid she worked at her uncle´s store. It would have been impossible to consider another job, everyone from the family worked there. Now, being 45 years old, she jobbed as the purchasing agent responsible for fruit and vegetables. She worked a 60 hour week and wasn´t even happy with her job. The only reason why she had not already quit was that she wanted to please her family. She would do anything for them.

She spied out of her honeycomb, like every single day. And like every other single day she would fly out to collect nectar and pollen. All her sisters would join her. She didn´t even know everyone, she had so many siblings that she stopped counting at one point. Three days ago, when she turned 21 days she was promoted to a forager bee. Since then she was collecting food for her family and especially for the queen, her mother. She didn´t have a close relationship to her mother and sometimes she was plagued by the thought if her mother had even ever noticed her.

By becoming a forager bee she had reached the highest step on the job ladder, a worker bee could reach. With being 25 days old she could look back on the first half of her life, which did not look very sunny. So right now she was kind of stuck in a midlife crisis and sometimes she thought in private about the fact, how unfair it was being told what to do all her life, but she hasn´t complained once. She went from cell cleaning over feeding the worker larvae to a guard bee. For 4 days she had to guard the entrance of the hive all day long. She wished that an enemy, something like a hornet, would fly by, which she had to banish. She wished for anything that would bring some variety and action in to the drab monotony of everyday life, but not even a damn bumble bee showed up.

Being able to fly out and collect nectar did not made her happy but it made her life definitely better than before. If somebody had asked her what her aim in life was she would have answered without a second thought:”I want to serve the queen and the hive. I will put all my effort in my work and I want to protect my family from any kind of danger, even if I have to use my sting to warrant their safety.” But know as she was flying into the sunrise the bee asked herself if she really would scarify herself in a case of emergency?  Not knowing what she would do in such a situation she collected the first drop of nectar. Not for her own use. No, everything she was doing she did to please the queen and the whole hive.

But she was burned out and needed some time for herself - time to think about if she really wanted to spend the rest of her life buying bananas and apples. She has been always interested in art; maybe she should just try her luck starting a whole new life. But she decided to take a holiday as a first step, the first one in 8 years.

Driving down Main Street she caught a glimpse of the strange dream she had last night. She couldn´t remember a lot, but she could bring to mind that she felt closely related to someone in the dream. “What a weird dream” she thought “I guess it had something to do with bees.”...

Out of a blue sky big waterdrops fell down to the ground and Brian began crawling forward even faster. That wasn’t easy, because he had to balance out the enormous weight of his body with his small legs but Brian was used to it. It was the same every morning at 6:30 ever since he had moved to this place. He wasn’t liked by his new host, and he didn’t like him either. It was just impossible for him to understand why people had to get up at 6:30 and take a shower every single morning but there had been worse times in his life. Brian only lived for his job and needed it to survive.

And today, his only ambition was to bear and outsmart Mr. Brown, this annoying man who had gotten on his nerves for too long now, and it was the only way to satisfy him. He knew that others used to call him greedy, a leech or a parasite, and said that he literally sucked out people, but he was actually proud of it rather than offended. In his opinion they were just jealous people who didn’t have enough talent and skills to succeed in their jobs, while Brian was a brilliant persuader and just loved being a banker. When he opened the door to his office he remembered that wonderful feeling he got everytime he was sitting in front of customers: Thousands of ideas came to his mind how he could persuade them to invest their money efficiently – and to Brian’s advantage.

The door opened and Mr. Brown came in slowly, looking shy but pleased. Brian watched him from his nice and cosy executive chair, something he was really proud of, and told him to sit down in his customary friendly manner. Then he looked at him and searched for the introductory words of his usual speech but nothing came to his mind. Meanwhile, Mr. Brown started to talk about his life and all the problems he had already explained for at least three times. But this time, Brian was actually listening and suddenly felt sorry for this poor man, who was sitting in front of him. No, he shouldn’t do that, Brian thought immediately, it would ruin his whole plan, but he couldn’t stop thinking about his customer. He had been able to deal with situations like this before, it belonged to his job, but this time he felt different when Mr. Brown talked about his wife who had gone away with their children and left him alone. He reminded Brian of himself and he felt something he hadn’t felt or hadn’t wanted to feel for a very long time – loneliness.

Sunlight flooded the whole room. Breaking through the curtain and warming up the blanket. Keeping the eyes closed Mr. Goodness groped for the hand of his wife…”Shit”, he sighed when groping nothing.
By opening his eyes he crawled out of bed.
It was 7.03 a.m. and he just woke up four minutes too late. Normally the one minute before the clock turned from 06.59 to 7.00 a.m. was the best of the whole day.  Silence, Security, Satisfaction… No stress, annoyance or dissatisfaction.
But since a few days ago these minute had been stolen.

By walking to the bathroom he saw the picture of their wedding “Thomas and Ann- dream team for life” was written under it.
“Dream team…” Mr. Goodness thought, getting sad.
By turning circles on his teeth he would like to cry, he could not understand why everything had to change so fast.

“Daddy, I have to go to the toilet! I cannot wait any longer. PLEASE… can you get out of the bathroom?” Steve just in front of Mr. Goodness was  jumping up and down.
The last sentence he pronounced really urgently and Mr. Goodness smiled tiredly to his son and walked out of the bathroom.
In which time of our young life do we lose the gift just to think exactly in the moment we are living in?

Boom, Boom, Tak- Boom, Boom, Tak.
Hammer, hammer, and nail input…
The sound of every day. Still working Mr. Goodness seemed to be a robot.
He did not take care of what he was doing. His hands were working on their own.
Still doing the same work every day of every week of every year.
“I just want to go my way….” he mumbled.
He mumbled every time, because he was not allowed to say what he thought out loud, “for our children”, he remembered Ann saying. “For our children…” he mumbled.

Coming through the front door the smell of dinner came straight to Mr. Goodness’ nose. Only ten minutes later, sitting at the table there was silence around him. Nobody was talking just Steve and Jolie, his children were giggling at the end of the table. Since a few days ago Mr. Goodness used eating for an excuse not to speak… chewing, gulping… always being in a hurry.
But the brain kept working on… Thinking of what had happened.

Until the accident everything was normal.

He woke up at 6.59 a.m.,
had his holy minute with Ann,
went to breakfast,
took the kids to school,
and went to the colony for work.
Then everything got out of control and Mr. Goodness’ life changed immediately.
Alex, his neighbor worker for 12 years and best friend as long as he could remember, got deadly injured.
The moment of the death was marked in Mr. Goodness brain for ever… every word caught in his memory.
“Thomas… I have to…. Go”
“No, please! Keep your eyes open! Do not leave me alone! PLEASE!”
“I… have to… But…. Go your way…! Be… happy… Jolie, Steve…Ann.”
“PLEASE!!! STAY ALIVE”, he screamed for a very long time… it seems nearly as if his voice was still gone, because of that scream.
The staring eyes to one point of the ceiling, the peaceful look… made Mr. Goodness feel tired every minute of the day.
“Daddy, please look at that… There are ants under the table, a thousand of ants… look at this… it seems as they are morning for the dead ant lying under your chair.”

“Get ready to leave!”

Vin put on her safety glasses and went to the brink of the helicopter. In a few seconds the back part of it would get opened and she had to jump out. She did it many times.

“Leave!”

Vin jumped out. She felt the cold air around her. The sound of the soughing wind was in her ears. She loved this sound. It was the beginning of a big adventure. Of a new assignment. Beneath her she saw the beautiful landscape of North Yorkshire. Her place of destination was a few hundred meters away from Robin Hood’s Bay, a small fishing village on the British North Sea Coast. Mairly, a small woman of the compartment Vin worked in, would wait on a field. She would have the last instructions for this operation.

“Ok Vin. Open your parachute.”

She heard the voice of her boss through the headphone she was wearing.

Seconds later she nearly floated in the air with the opened parachute right above her. She thought about her assignment. In Robin Hood’s Bay lived an older insect explorer. But not this man who was a bit freaky was the target. The son of this older man was involved in a case of defraudment. It had to be a very big case of defraudment because her client wanted to see the son dead. Actually clients with case of defraudment problems wanted to blackmail some people or to kidnap a family member of these people. But Vin did not care. She was just interested in the money she would get.

A few seconds later she gently landed on a field. Mairly came across the field to her.

“Here are your last instructions. Your name is Catherine Burks and you’re lost in Robin Hood’s Bay because you wanted to visit your grand aunt. Her name was Mary Burks. But she died two years ago. You didn’t get the message of her death because nobody has contacted you. The house of the target is the neighbouring house. Do your best to get into his house. Wish you success!”

Vin opened the envelope Mairly gave her, went away and into Robin Hood’s Bay. The address of the target’s house was written on a small piece of paper. 5 Manor Road.

Vin walked on a long road into the village. Manor Road was a smaller street right next to the main street. It was a beautiful village. Very good for families and people, who did not like big cities. Very good for a life she would never have.

She stopped in front of a small house with rose trees behind a white painted fence. This was 4 Manor Road . The target’s house. Now she had to field all her charm to convince the son. It would be perfect if he fell in love with her. In many cases her targets fell for her just because of her beauty and the wildness she had. Vin was looking forward to meeting the son.

With energetical steps Vin walked through the garden gate and knocked on the door. Seconds later a younger man opened the door.

“Hey I’m Catherine Burks. I wanted to visit my grand aunt Mary Burks but she didn’t open the door. And it was another name on the nameplate. Can you tell me whether she lives here?”

“Uhm I’m so sorry to tell you that. Mrs. Burks died two years ago. Haven’t you been contacted?”

“She died? Oh my gosh I didn’t know that! I…I don’t now what I should do now.”

At the same time a small insect steered into the garden. Its yellow and black stripes glowed in front of the blue sky. The insect felt that there was a colony she could infiltrat. With some help of the younger ones which were following her she could easily do it. The insect landed on the grass and crawled beneath one of the rose trees. Near the fence she found the hole. The entrance to the colony. Now she was in the colony she had to find the queen and kill her. When it was done her work in this colony would be finished.

She crawled past some unsuspecting insect of the colony when she saw the queen. A few last steps and the insect was right in front of the queen. Three minutes later and the queen was dead because of a special pheromone the insect made use of.

Vin, who did not know about what was going on in the underground left Robin Hood’s Bay with a smile on her face. Work was done.

It was one of these days. She was sitting in English class, dreaming instead of working. Was she really interested in caterpillars? No she wasn’t, she was more interested in butterflies. But here she sat writing an essay about little hairy grey things in a cocoon, instead of doing what she really wanted: Preparing for a life on the runways of the world.

“The caterpillar is destined to become a beautiful butterfly one day. Even though you wouldn’t believe from the looks of the caterpillar, every single one makes that development”, she wrote and looked out in the rain.

“Once it has pupated into its cocoon, the development into a butterfly just happens without its doing anything about it. It just sits and waits for two weeks, until the little hairy something greets the world as a lovely, colorful butterfly.”

“I’d like to make that development”, she thought after she had finished her story. Her mother had always told her that intrinsic values and inner beauty are much more important than good looks. She didn’t like her mother’s preaching on that issue, she wanted to become a famous model looking down from the covers of all important fashion magazines, replacing Claudia Schiffer or Kate Moss. But that was hard to achieve: Her figure was just normal, her hair was mouse grey and she wasn’t that tall. Despite all these conditions, her inner will was strong enough for three people.

By the time she finished school she had already decided to get an interview at a model agency, although her parents wanted her to get a “real job” at the local bank.

It was an ugly fight: Her father yelled, her mother cried and she almost would have missed the bus and have gotten too late to her appointment at the agency. What if her parents were right? What if she really WAS just a grey little something like the caterpillar? But she dropped that thought and pushed the door open to ‘Butterflies unlimited ’.  And she truly went off limits in that interview. Surprisingly the model agents were stunned by her aura and offered her a job for a big campaign. By and by she more and more got in the model business and after a few years she was a celebrated model with jobs all over the world and a lot of money.

But by having and becoming everything she ever wanted to have, her family had turned away from her. She virtually had no contact to her parents and her siblings anymore until she got a call from her younger brother. “Hey, how are you? How’s everything going?”, he started but she felt that something was wrong. At last he told her: Her mother had died at a car accident.

Suddenly her whole world crashed and she was unable to do her job or to live her life like before. That was the point where she started thinking about what her mother had always told her: “Don’t try to be someone who you aren’t. Be yourself instead.”

She always had aimed for a good life, but had she ever recognized what the good things were?! Being a model had basically left her without any friends or family.

“Is that worth it? Am I really happier just because I have a well-paid job and see myself smiling from a big bill at Times Square?!”

And finally she observed that it was not. No money can make up for a lonely life, however gorgeous it may seem.

On a sunny, warm day in Australia a little, but longish and female insect picked some yummy green leaves and ate them immediately like she always did. She was almost perfect, she was smart, polite and funny, but she had just one problem.......she loved every kind of food. By and by she became fatter and fatter, because she used to devour a lot since she was small. The other insects did not like the fact that she was chewing some food all the time and was gaining a lot of weight, so they started mobbing her and excluded her from the group.

Once she saw some ants, while she was looking for her next meal again, she wanted to get to know the ants, therefore she was asking them: "Hey, what do you think about the idea to search for food together?" But one ant only replied: "For what? That you take everything and become even crosser and we will have empty stomachs then?!" The ants laughed and went away. Suddenly it began to rain and the insect wriggled home very sadly and disappointed. Although her mother was saying that the other insects were just jealous, she did not like the situation of being a victim of mean sayings anyway.

When the new school year began, all students sat on their seats on the first day. Everyone except a girl, who used to be in the class. No one of her classmates knew where she was, but they were not even interested. Six months later a new student with a slightly British accent entered the school. It was a beautiful girl, which none of the other students had seen before. Because of her beauty the students gave her the nickname "Butterfly". Everyone in school started liking her and many of them wanted to become friends with the girl, but "Butterfly" refused their invitations and said: "I would rather turn back into a fat caterpillar, than being friends with you!"