“You were born during the summer of locusts,” Cole’s mother would explain when he asked why he was different, why he was the way he was.
But it never made sense. He had no long, beefy hopper legs. No antennae. No thorax. No wings. Rather, his lower portions were hardened exoskeleton with an orifice. Encased inside, along with his human innards, were two reservoirs containing separate chemicals. A sphincter could squeeze the chemicals into a mixing chamber which would then explode out the orifice.
Cole was part bombardier beetle and that’s all he knew in life. The rest of him was the skin and flesh of man, human face, human hands, human legs. He could hide his beetle parts under clothing. But sometimes they revealed themselves.
***
Cole could barely remember the first time it happened.
“I told you not to play with matches!” his mom said as she smothered his bedding and doused his wood bed frame with water.
But he had no matches, no lighter, or anything but his nighttime dreams. He was potty training when hot acid, around the boiling point of water, shot out of his orifice. It burned through his training shorts, torched his bed and seared the carpet of his room. The noxious smell of burned shag and smoke remained for months. A reminder of the danger he posed. A reminder that he would not fit in this world.
***
The hot acid of Cole’s beetle loins remained inactive for many years. He chalked it up to the childhood phase of learning to wake and relieve himself when the urge presented.
Cole was a good boy, did what he was told, followed the program and went to college to learn from those supposedly much smarter, and more normal than him. Drinking buddies and good ol’ times were his only way to forget who he really was under his denim pants and baggy flannel shirts, untucked, always untucked so no one would notice the irregular angles of his exoskeleton.
In line at their favorite campus bar, Cole and his pals waited for the bouncer to collect cover and weed out unwelcomes. A young woman with a short enough skirt and a fake ID cut in line—as many ladies were allowed to do—when Cole could feel the chemicals mixing in his abdomen. Before he could excuse himself to the john, she looked back to him and winked. The explosion burned through Cole’s pants, shot hot acid on the fellow in front of him, ignited his jacket, and burned his clothes and the back of his scalp. Cole fled, only to turn himself in later when he saw the news.
“Arsonist burned club-goers at local watering hole, facing possible assault charges.”
His defense attorney said the Government had a deal for him he had to take: one tour in Iraq, and they’d drop the case.
***
Cole hated the sand and heat, hated that his Country was in another foreign war, that he might have to kill. But perhaps this was where he belonged—in a faraway war-torn land where the atrocities surrounding him were much worse than his accidental torchings back home.
“Door kicker,” he told the Sergeant upon induction.
“At six foot two, you’re too tall to be a door kicker,” Sergeant replied. “Door kickers are under five seven. Why would you want to be first in anyway?”
“I can burn things,” Cole said.
“What?”
“Burn things, I can burn things. And I have protection.” Cole stood, unzipped his BDUs and pulled up his shirt, revealing his exoskeleton. He knocked his knuckles against his pelvic area. “See, hard as a rock. And, when I’m excited or anxious, angry or scared, I shoot hot acid, almost like boiling apple juice, that will melt the enemy’s faces.”
“What in God’s name are you, son?” Sergeant said.
“Sir, I don’t know, sir. My mom said locust but I think I’m part bombardier beetle.”
“Still, you’re too tall. We can put you right behind a door kicker. From the angle of your hole, or whatever that is, it seems you could shoot that acid juice over the kicker. He’d have to crouch, but that one-two combo, kick and spray, could be just what we need.”
“Yes, sir.”
***
Upon discharge, Cole returned to the States. But he knew there was no place for him in society anymore. He retreated to Avalon, later becoming a hermit living in a cave in the cliffs near Two Harbors. Occasionally ferry riders or flying-fish tourists would spot him on the shore. They’d wave, he’d wave back, and then he’d disappear into the cliffs where he could not hurt anyone.
He wore his gray hair in a ponytail. A loose burlap sack covered his exoskeleton area. As he aged, it began to crack, and when chemicals began leaking into hot puddles while he slept, burning his human skin, he knew it was his time.
Cole went to the highest cliff and looked down at the crashing waves. The drop was far, the sharp basalt rocks unforgiving. He was sure even his rigid bug parts would splatter.
He took a deep breath and looked off to the Pacific, as peaceful as it had ever been.
Where the shallow greenish water turned to deep blue, he first noticed it. A dark cloud.
Then he heard it. A buzz. The dark cloud on this cloudless day became bigger.
The buzzing intensified.
He knew what it was. Thousands of small insects humming toward him as fast as their wings could carry them. Locusts.
He stepped back from the cliff. He held his arms wide to welcome them. As the black mass swarmed and tore in, he smiled. He no longer had to worry about hurting others or himself.
Cole, part man, part bombardier beetle, somehow born and taken by locust, was finally free.
Michael Carter is a writer and occasional photographer from Montana. He enjoys fly fishing, RVing, and walking his dog Hubbell. He’s online at michaelcarter.ink.
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