The Beetle Who Went To The Sun

“I’m gonna go to the sun one day mom.” The beetle said to his mother, as he watched on their little television, wide eyed, the grainy black and white footage of a rocket launching into outer space.

And for the many days after the little beetle spent them flying around model spacecrafts he’d created from twigs and neglecting his beetle responsibilities.

“Beetles don’t go to space!” His mother shouted one night over dinner in frustration, “So eat your poop and go freak out some humans in their homes after, you understand?”

In a seething rage the beetle flung his roasted dung at their rotting wood walls and scuttered off, tears streaking off his wings.

The following weeks dragged on as his life once again became a monotonous and devoid of purpose sequence. He did what he was asked. In the mornings he grabbed his packed lunch of dirt or whatever beetles eat and made his way to the many different homes nearby where he lost track of the countless hours he stood lifelessly on each of their various floors. Innately, bugs are meant to be disgusting and squashed, which was a reality the beetle was well aware of but they also possess survival instincts that became increasingly less obvious with each job he went to. He really should have reacted or even cared more when homeowners would scream and whip out books to beat him down but he often was delayed and lethargic to get away. In his defense, his laziness allowed him to learn a lot about his biological capabilities, taking many direct hits only to be flattened but feel nothing, both inside and out. Despite still being alive after everyone of these dangerous encounters, he was not living,

One warm dark night, the beetle came home exhausted after putting in a late night shift. Instead of rinsing off the fresh new footprints he’d received earlier as his reward, he sulked his way through their little hole, past the dinner table, and passed out on his bed.

But his sleep wasn’t deep enough as he was awoken by a thunderous roar that echoed through the forest sending startled birds flapping out of their nests and bringing poking heads of critters out from their shelters.

The beetle leapt out his bed and raced out from the protection of his home. For a moment the forest could see nothing. And then, like their creator coming down from the heavens, a brilliant light washed over the trees and dead leaves, and by far the largest and pointiest figure the beetle had ever seen emerged over the trees engulfed in flames. He watched, jaw dropped – or maybe wings parted? –, as the object shot further and further into the night sky, suddenly reminding him of the rockets he used to watch on their tv.

No way. Could it really be? He’d begun to think rockets were just figments of imagination or that they only existed in geo politically and economically stable countries – as if he knew where on earth he was located anyway. But as it got higher up, it became increasingly clear.

That was a rocket. And had been right in front of him. And where on earth else would it be going besides not Earth?

He leapt in the air in pure joy, like many of his beetle ancestors must’ve done at some point over some excitement in their lives he thought in a suddenly nostalgic moment. He carried on back to his bed but who was he kidding. There was no way he was going to get any sleep anymore after witnessing that.

The beetle woke up not to his alarm but instead to his mother’s yelling the next morning. He’d slept in way past his start time, and someone was counting on him to be a nuisance somewhere, so in a flash he grabbed his lunch and hurried off.

Habitually, he’d always gone to the east where they had the most customers but this morning he was compelled to head in the direction of the rocket. He traversed the endless canopy of dead leaves as quickly as his tiny legs would let him, climbing branches and scaling rocks until suddenly there were no more trees.

Just ahead of him, the forest ended abruptly like a comedian flailing during a set, and on the other side was a vast grassy field as far as he could see. A gargantuan metallic structure that seemed to touch the sky broke the monotony of the setting. Had this place seriously always existed? He thought to himself.

But it didn’t seem like the rocket he saw last night. And as he thought about it more, it made sense. He often didn’t care for the beginning of those videos, but the few times he did pay attention he noticed the rockets always started in some kind of hold chamber that looked incredibly familiar to what he was staring at now. He tried to recall. Maybe it was called a launching pod or something?

And so every morning before work and every night after, the beetle relentlessly visited the site. It was a lot of additional mileage to add and he often came home way too tired to even eat. His mother began to worry he was out gambling or sipping sap but he assured her with a clever lie that he was chasing a promotion. Which hey, if he got to space, wouldn’t really be much of a lie would it.

It was on a morning he least expected, hell he almost didn’t go, that a new rocket suddenly spawned.

“Back already?” His mother said, surprised to see her son as he burst through the hole wildly.

“I forgot something.” He blurted out, rushing into his room where he froze. Anxiety flushed in a desperate attempt to immobilize him. His thoughts were sabotaged with doubts that never materialized before. What if the ship wasn’t there already? What if he couldn’t physically handle what goes on out there? What if he failed?

Or even worse, what if had the opportunity but was too scared to act on it, he suddenly thought.

No.

He grabbed his old knapsack that he used to carry back when he was just starting out, and circled the room for his knickknacks. He snatched a pile of collected mildew as rations and decayed bark to journal his adventures. He figured he’d bring his only coat. Who knew how cold it could get in space?

On his way out the room he stopped to admire the first model spaceship he built so long ago. If only he could’ve told himself from 24 days ago where he’d be now.

The beetle made his way to the middle of their living room inside the safety of their rotten wooden log where he stopped dramatically and faced his mother.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you with that thing.” She commented, eyeing his knapsack.

“Mother,” The beetle started, “I’m going to the sun. This is what I’m meant to do. Hold down the house for me.”

He started towards the exit despite her complete shock.

“What – What the? What’s gotten into you, are you crazy?” She screamed, following after him, “Are you seriously gonna just leave me here!”

“I have to do this! There’s a ship out there with my name on it and I’m getting on it. I promise I’ll make you proud, I promise.” He cried as he raced out.

He blazed through the forest as his mom shouted behind him, her voice becoming more distant until it was just a memory in the past.

As he crossed the field for the first time, the sun bared down on him freely, no trees or leaves or anything getting in its way, sending rays like invitations as if it was encouraging him to come over.

He scaled the metallic shell of the rocket to find that, to his convenience, the door was wide open.

“Well if you insist.” He said aloud to himself and strolled on in.

The beetle crawled up the outer rungs of a ladder before entering a room that gave him a sensory overload. From wall to wall, every inch of the room was plastered in shiny bright buttons, some flashing and others waiting to be pressed.

He didn’t really know what to do next so he found a nook in the ceiling overhead and decided to camp out for a few minutes since he was pretty exhausted anyway.

The beetle didn’t mean to fall asleep, and especially not for that long, but when he woke up he wasn’t in his little cranny anymore.

Suspended over the seats below him but somehow still in the air, he gasped. He was floating, but his wings weren’t even flapping. Rubbing his hands together and then cracking his joints, he started up his wings. It was so incredibly easy to make his way through the room and he felt light as a feather.

The glass of the cockpit stopped him from moving any further forward. Peering outside, the beetle couldn’t believe his eyes. Millions of little lights, brighter than the buttons inside, lit up the dark background of the universe ahead of him. He couldn’t believe it. He was actually in space.

How on earth he and this ship got up there, he didn’t have the faintest idea, but there still seemed to be nobody in the room and so he descended down to the control panel to have a better idea of how to control this thing. A big switch with comically large writing caught his eye.

All his years of experience of invading human spaces suddenly amounted to this moment as he could actually read the two options.

Moon.

Sun.

The switch was currently pointed at Moon.

Huh, he thought to himself. Well, if it really was that easy…

He positioned himself against the switch, and with all the strength in his little body, nudged it until it abruptly stopped fighting back and clicked and swiveled around to the other side. An unsuspecting beetle who had been pushing too hard, barreled right across as suddenly, red lights descended from the ceiling and began to blare.

Seems like everything was good then, the beetle thought, slowly floating his way back to his nook to watch with a view. He figured it might take some time.

A droplet of water hit the beetle's face, taking him aback. As he looked up, another fat drop landed smack in his eye.

“What the!” He shouted. An army of droplets hovered menacingly above him like bats perched on a branch , threatening to strike down on him at whatever moment they felt like.

Yea he wasn’t gonna deal with that. He flew out from his comfy spot he was getting used to but stopped in mid air. Did they run into a lake or something because pools of water were flooding all kinds of spaces all over the room, with hundreds of drops like rain coming down over the control panel.

Worst of all, he was struggling to see it because there was arguably too much light, an issue he never thought you could have. But in the second he was able to register what he saw, he got everything he needed.

The ship was melting. The entire thing was melting. The glass window that was the protection between him and the perils of space vaporized and ceased to exist, and the once sturdy walls were now peeling down like string cheese.

The beetle panicked and frantically looked around for anything he could do. He fluttered towards one of the vanishing walls and tried grabbing some of the molten metal hoping to somehow put it back together. But besides it being a little hot, it also vanished in his microscopic hands by the second.

There was once a moment where he was in a rocket ship. There was now a new moment where he was not. Everything that he was inside of no longer existed. He was helplessly barreling towards the brightest scene any living creature had ever witnessed in history, completely engulfed in heat and light.

He closed his eyes in an attempt to escape it but to no avail. The rays violated his eyelids. He felt his body get warmer and warmer.

This was it, he thought.

And then it was.

Because he’d stopped moving.

“Huh?” The beetle wondered aloud as he adjusted his body to place his legs down on the surface of what could only be the sun. It was a bit hot to be honest and he wished he had some kind of barrier between them to remove some of that discomfort, but it was nothing he couldn’t deal with.

He looked around to which there really wasn’t anything to look at since it was a bit too bright.

Well, he thought to himself, he figured he could explore at night. So for now, he settled up into a little ball and went to take a nap as a beetle on the sun.