Seven Years Ago
“Jenny? Are you alright?”
Mr Kalkowski, leaning on his stick, looks down from the bank which swoops down to the lake’s edge. A figure lies prone across a grassy mound by the pebbled shore.
She twists, squinting upwards, a hand against her eyes, against brilliant sunshine. “Hello, Mr Kalkowski. Yes, I’m fine. I was just watching this.” She waves a hand across a patch of reeds which edges the shore where a stream meets the lake.
Her teacher descends the slope carefully, using his stick as support while he guides himself along a six-inch wide, sheep-trotted path between slippery grassy hummocks. Drawing closer, he can see the elaborate zig-zag manoeuvres of dragonflies over the water. In brilliant shades of electric blue and iridescent green, their scintillating wings compete with the sparkle of the water for beauty and attention.
As he peers to see what holds her so spellbound, she points in close to where a brown-shelled monster is rising out of the water, climbing up a reed. Only a couple of inches long, it is a monster nonetheless. Then she points again to another, and another. Some are only just escaping their watery haven. Others have settled higher up the stems. Yet others have split open at the back of their ugly casing and something is squeezing its way out. And in one or two places, can be seen the escaped occupants sitting drying in the sunshine, their sheath an abandoned husk. Wings pump up and out and open with the coming promise of the shimmering beauty of their flying companions.
“Ah, yes,” comments the old man. “The emerging nymphs of Anisoptera.”
She glances at him, puzzled.
Dark eyes twinkle over the top of his spectacles. “Dragonflies to you and me,” he explains. “Anisoptera is the Latin designation for that order of insects.” He looks in more closely. “It is certainly an…. arresting sight. I do see why you would be taking the time to watch. Have you been here long?”
“About an hour, I think,” she replies. “Have you seen this before?”
“At times,” he nods. “But never such a mass… um…. emergence…. as this. “Would you mind if I join you to watch the spectacle?”
She smiles widely, displaying teeth which glint pearl, then shuffles up to make room.
Mr Kalkowski seats himself beside the teenage beauty, settling to watch the display. One after another of the larvae climbs slowly to winged freedom, shedding the water which clings upwardly to the reed stems in a smooth curve. Each one splits along a line down the back of its shell, partially escaping before pausing….
“What are they waiting for?”
“The exoskeleton is soft as it emerges,” replies the old man. “The legs have to harden in the air before they are strong enough to entirely pull the creature free from its prison.”
Above the water, the adult insects quarter the area in squadrons.
“Do you think those, are some of these?” she asks, pointing between adults and larvae.
adult to fully gain its strength and true
do they do
He gestures at the emerging larvae…. “They will consume mosquito larvae and similar creatures. Even tadpoles and small fish. As adults, they will eat gnats, flies, mosquitoes, even butterflies
her face. “I think I like
is a dangerous place if you are small and helpless.” He gestures towards speckled shapes in the stream, waving as they hold their position against the current. “Between trout below and dragonflies above, it is not a safe place to be.” He sniffs. “Of course, for us, they make good
I’ve ever
garlic-and-butter-stuffed trout. You might want to ask her to
“With those?”
to catch one? Take it
Actually,
than one way to skin a cat, Jenny. And more than one way to land a
stands carefully, then hunkers down again, balancing on two flattish stones as he reaches into the water. Jenny leans across
to either side of the gently
as the fingers move closer, brush against silvery scales then, reaching underneath, gently lift the fish from the water, where it lies calmly in his hands, speckled scales gleaming opal and
stares at it. “Why doesn't it try
can speculate about perhaps a kind of hypnosis, but….” He shrugs…. “…. who can say what passes through
up her face, feeling a little queasy. “Noooo... Let it
nods. “I agree. When one has captured the beast with line and fly, it seems fairer, does it not? The battle between man and beast. Yes, no? But this feels like a kind
releasing the fish back into the water, where with a casual flick of the tail, it resumes its vigil in the current. “Think of the story it could tell, Jenny, to
“Fish don’t
on the grassy hummock. “You
Her brows pucker...
believe me.” He casts around at the pebbled shoreline, then stooping, picks
sit smoothly in her palm. “It's a pebble. It's pretty, with all those stripes, but it's still just
tell you a story….” She scrunches her face and he taps the end of her nose with the finger. “That pebble was once part of a much larger layer of rock, laid down millions of years ago as fine silt, perhaps at the bottom of a lake. The red stripes tell you that when the silt settled, the water was calm and clear. It was exposed to the air above. The green colouration tells you that something had changed.
stares. “But how can you
is that of iron compounds when they form without air, the water stagnant for some reason. If we knew where this pebble came from, the bedrock from which it formed, we could read the history of its
at the