Benjamin
The Living Force
The “Insects” (Summer, c.2002)
For about 3 months, I was staying at the now defunct O O SA Korean Buddhist Temple. It was a late-1900's former Methodist and United Church located in Riverdale, a neighbourhood in Edmonton, AB, Canada. In 2015 the building went up for sale and about 2017, the building was demolished. (I’m not a Buddhist. I was actually there for another reason that never transpired. It was a very confusing situation.)
I had gone outside for a cigarette and was standing by the side entrance. Nobody was around. I became aware of the distant noise of rustling leaves which I located coming up the fence line toward me. I saw nothing but the sound grew louder and closer. My first thought was that it was a mouse travelling under the cover of dry leaves and small dead branches and I wanted to see if I could find it. I moved closer to the fence line and bent down, now being able to track the little disturbances of the leaves. I was thinking that I might have to gently move some of the brush to expose the little guy scurrying by, although that thought made me excitedly nervous. But I didn’t have to because all of a sudden, there they were. A group of “insects” of some sort, the likes I had never seen before, had emerged. There were two large ones about 7-8 inches long and about 6-7 smaller ones about 3-4 inches long (I got the impression, later on, that it was a family) all travelling in a tight group together at a fairly good pace. The first thing that struck me was that they were all completely white or slightly off-white with the exception of two tiny black dots for eyes. Their shape was that of long, low, triangles with no segmentation (and, seriously, devoid of any texture at all that I can remember). Only four legs each, no antenna, and appeared to be flightless (as in no shell hiding wings beneath). Their surface was not shiny but very, very matte, so much so that it made it hard to see their actual shape (after thinking about it, if they were to stand still, they would almost appear to be two dimensional).
This next part is a bit fuzzy for me but something happened and one of the little ones lagged behind having fallen down between some of the long twigs. The main group stopped about two feet later with one of the big ones turning around and going back to check on it. In the process of doing so, the big one also lost its footing on the gnarly sticks and ended up on its back pointing away from the group. It struggled for only half a second, stopped, then hit the sticks underneath itself forcibly with its HIND legs, acrobatically flipping itself over vertically, back onto all-fours, and was now pointing TOWARDS the main group! The little one had since rejoined the others on its own, to which the larger one quickly followed suit. The big one stopped for a meer moment when they were once again all united and then, as one unit, all started to walk at the same speed again.
Then, they were gone. Literally! They disappeared back under the rustling cover of dry leaves which twitched for awhile from being disturbed. The diminishing rustling sound continued for a short time after the leaves ceased moving, and then all was silent. I looked for them. I moved leaves and twigs and found nothing. They were nowhere and surveying the terrain and the changes in the landscape, they should have been somewhere! It’s like a video where someone has recorded 20 seconds of one shot, and composites a fifteen second shot over top of the first by fading it in and then fading it out.
Just a quick note about HOW they travelled because it really was fascinating. They travelled as a group. They stopped as a group and started as a group. When the others were waiting for the two to rejoin them, they did not move. When the little one caught up with the others, it stopped and did not move and then they all just waited for the big one to catch up. None of them strayed or got bored and wandered off. No sounds ever came from them that I could hear.
I put insects in quotes for two reasons. Firstly because they had insect-like qualities but were not insects like I had ever seen. Secondly, if they were from another dimension, they might only look like insects on this dimension.
The photo of O O Sa was not taken by me. It’s the only one I could find on-line that showed the area in question. The ground along the fence line in this photo is cleaner than when I was living there.
The drawing is the best I could do. Accuracy is... general.
Cheers!
For about 3 months, I was staying at the now defunct O O SA Korean Buddhist Temple. It was a late-1900's former Methodist and United Church located in Riverdale, a neighbourhood in Edmonton, AB, Canada. In 2015 the building went up for sale and about 2017, the building was demolished. (I’m not a Buddhist. I was actually there for another reason that never transpired. It was a very confusing situation.)
I had gone outside for a cigarette and was standing by the side entrance. Nobody was around. I became aware of the distant noise of rustling leaves which I located coming up the fence line toward me. I saw nothing but the sound grew louder and closer. My first thought was that it was a mouse travelling under the cover of dry leaves and small dead branches and I wanted to see if I could find it. I moved closer to the fence line and bent down, now being able to track the little disturbances of the leaves. I was thinking that I might have to gently move some of the brush to expose the little guy scurrying by, although that thought made me excitedly nervous. But I didn’t have to because all of a sudden, there they were. A group of “insects” of some sort, the likes I had never seen before, had emerged. There were two large ones about 7-8 inches long and about 6-7 smaller ones about 3-4 inches long (I got the impression, later on, that it was a family) all travelling in a tight group together at a fairly good pace. The first thing that struck me was that they were all completely white or slightly off-white with the exception of two tiny black dots for eyes. Their shape was that of long, low, triangles with no segmentation (and, seriously, devoid of any texture at all that I can remember). Only four legs each, no antenna, and appeared to be flightless (as in no shell hiding wings beneath). Their surface was not shiny but very, very matte, so much so that it made it hard to see their actual shape (after thinking about it, if they were to stand still, they would almost appear to be two dimensional).
This next part is a bit fuzzy for me but something happened and one of the little ones lagged behind having fallen down between some of the long twigs. The main group stopped about two feet later with one of the big ones turning around and going back to check on it. In the process of doing so, the big one also lost its footing on the gnarly sticks and ended up on its back pointing away from the group. It struggled for only half a second, stopped, then hit the sticks underneath itself forcibly with its HIND legs, acrobatically flipping itself over vertically, back onto all-fours, and was now pointing TOWARDS the main group! The little one had since rejoined the others on its own, to which the larger one quickly followed suit. The big one stopped for a meer moment when they were once again all united and then, as one unit, all started to walk at the same speed again.
Then, they were gone. Literally! They disappeared back under the rustling cover of dry leaves which twitched for awhile from being disturbed. The diminishing rustling sound continued for a short time after the leaves ceased moving, and then all was silent. I looked for them. I moved leaves and twigs and found nothing. They were nowhere and surveying the terrain and the changes in the landscape, they should have been somewhere! It’s like a video where someone has recorded 20 seconds of one shot, and composites a fifteen second shot over top of the first by fading it in and then fading it out.
Just a quick note about HOW they travelled because it really was fascinating. They travelled as a group. They stopped as a group and started as a group. When the others were waiting for the two to rejoin them, they did not move. When the little one caught up with the others, it stopped and did not move and then they all just waited for the big one to catch up. None of them strayed or got bored and wandered off. No sounds ever came from them that I could hear.
I put insects in quotes for two reasons. Firstly because they had insect-like qualities but were not insects like I had ever seen. Secondly, if they were from another dimension, they might only look like insects on this dimension.
The photo of O O Sa was not taken by me. It’s the only one I could find on-line that showed the area in question. The ground along the fence line in this photo is cleaner than when I was living there.
The drawing is the best I could do. Accuracy is... general.
Cheers!
