No Freak Of Nature

So there I was, in the forest, learning how to conceal and camouflage the vehicle. It was quite tiring, but as usual, nature is always a motivation - THE motivation, in fact- to go outfield. Nothing can quite replace the smell of leaves, the feeling of the winds and the sight of the creatures of nature (save the irritating bees who keep pestering us).

'Hey, Derrick, look!' Ivan exclaimed, 'I have psychic powers!' He said in a child-like manner. This boy, I have seen him torture ants by drowning them in a puddle of water, and then smiled as he watched them struggle for their lives. And he won't even let them die... yet. He brings the half dead ant onto the dry ground and then proudly proclaimed with a smirk on his face, 'they are still alive.' When I protested that we shouldn't mess with nature, he retorted, 'well, man is part of nature also what.' That was still mild, the worst I have seen is when he used a lighter to burn the lips of a poor toad (no kidding!)

This time though, he had spotted a caterpillar hanging out of nowhere in the middle of the piece of land. His 'psychic powers' apparently is how he cleverly uses his hands to make the caterpillar seem that it was hanging on nothingness, somewhat like how Magneto raises his hands to support cars in the air. Upon closer scrutiny - and I mean real close - for only then can one see the thin fine thread that the caterpillar was hanging from - and only barely! I even had to see it against the green background of our No. 4 uniform before I can make out the thread. And as it was, the caterpillar was trying to take in the thread into its own body so as to move upwards towards the branches about 1m above. It was truly remarkable.

Ivan had better ideas. He used a stick and stroked the fine thread in another direction, making the poor creature fall back again to a lower level. He repeats this continously such that that creature really makes no meaningful progress at all. As I said to Ivan, he had no idea that it was like a 24km route march for the caterpillar.

And then suddenly, to my horror, Ivan smiled (that same evil smile he wears on his face when he drowns an ant), and he pulled the thread. 'Oh crap,' I thought to myself, convinced that the thread will definitely give way this time. To my surprise, though, once he released his fingers, the thread recoiled and bounced back to its original position, much like those springs you use at the physics lab, only now, it happened in nature! So astonished was I that I kept murmuring that 'this is mad. This is mad, man. Mad. The thread is damn strong, lah. Damn strong leh.' Even I myself was forced to do some experiment on my own, and true enough, the fragile-looking thread was strong and elastic enough to withstand the pull of my fingers. Madness.

And after some persuasion, I managed to convince Ivan to leave that poor thing alone, and finally he did, leaving nature to nature. Its destiny is to become a fluttering yellow butterfly, and we shouldn't interfere with that beautiful design. As for us exhausted but astonished humans, we continued that nong nong day outfield.