Be Careful of the Larva

When I was a child, my sister and I liked to curl up on the couch together and enact life-threatening disasters.

Occasionally, our disasters included the fantasy of lying on our mattresses as flood waters filled our home. We would lie peacefully on our mattresses, slowly drifting away forever. This was a lyrical version of our shared disaster fantasy. But when we were feeling a touch hysterical, it was always the fantasy of the larva.

This particular fantasy did not begin so exotically. When we first began playing this game, we would lie on the couch side by side, usually with my sister on the outer edge. We would lie tense, waiting. Then, without warning, as disasters often come, my sister would begin to slide of the couch toward the floor.

"Save me, Heidi! Save me!"

My sister would go limp, all but for her hands that would grapple with mine. I would pull furiously at her arms, trying desperately to keep her legs from falling off the brink.

"Save me, Heidi! Save me from the lava!"

Somehow the reality of the lava all around us never clashed with the reality of the lava devouring us on the couch-like precipice where we lay. All I know was that we needed to keep away from that bright, red stuff.

"The lava, the lava," I would scream.

Sometimes I would succeed in saving my sister. I'd manage to get her safely back on the cushions, and we'd smile. There was a moment of rest before she would then restart her slip-slide to imminent death.

Sometimes I would fail in saving my sister. I'd grab at her arms, her clothes. She would look at me, wide-eyed.

"Save me from the lava!"

But once her legs made it over the edge, it was all over. Her foot would touch ground and that would be the end of her.

"You killed me," she would say sometimes.

But she'd always get back on the couch for our refractory period. Then we'd begin again. We loved to play this game.

I'm not sure how long we played this game before we changed the enemy.

My sister was sliding; I was pulling. I don't remember which of us said it first, but the other heard:

"The larva!!"

For years we had been plagued by a free-flowing river of molten rock. But now - now we were faced with a river of seething, squirming larvae. The heightened sense of terror and danger was palpable. Our living room would fill with millions of larvae, and we would teeter on the edge of sanity as we fought for survival.

I don't regularly save anyone anymore from menaces, real or imagined. There was something to it, that feeling where fear and exhilaration join. That feeling comes with an inflated sense of purpose, a certainty that what you do is truly a matter of life and death, that all your actions are matters of consequence.

I think it might be quite lovely to find that particular variety of excitement again. I could be at a coffeeshop watching an old woman sift through some pre-packaged cookies. Dark storm clouds would begin to form overhead. In an act both graceful and sudden, I would whisk her aside just as a bolt of lightening scorched the ground between the pillars of her walker.

On a day like that, I bet I could fly through the rest of my To Do List, fueled by my own sense of good-doing.

Perhaps it would be just as uplifting to be saved so dramatically. I could be sitting in traffic, listening to music and being oblivious to the unprecedented herd of buffalo charging towards my car. Some stranger would throw open my door and drag me out of harm's way. I would watch as my car was trampled. My sense of gratitude would be matched only by my zeal to be alive.

On a day like that, I would relish every task I laid my hands to.

It is clear to me now that my life needs larva. Disgusting as they are, my life is lesser without them.

Save me! Save me from the larva!