Member-only story
The Heavyweight
The beetle came out of the ground under a full moon. It pushed its way through the earth, with its gracelessly new body still soft and pale. By dawn, the shell had become hardened.
Heavy. The legs were thick, meant to scramble amongst thick undergrowth, whereas the horn was for fighting and digging.
It fed on fruits that had fallen off the canopy. It hunted not, hidden not. When monkeys were chattering above it, it simply went deep into the soft earth.
One night, it found a rival at a sap flow. They locked horns, shoving in a strength contest that sent tremors down to the very leaves around them. The one who lost tipped onto his back, flailing his legs in the air. He who won drank in solitude.
At the turn of the dry season, it would sense the alteration passing. Burrowing, deep into the ground, its body was slowing to near-halt. It waited the drought ()out in lightless sleep.
The empty shell of the beetle sometimes found its way into the palms of children-a deserted fortress with no solider inside. They would hold it for a moment, astounded by its weight, only to put it back onto the ground again.
Afterward, when the sun rose, it would never see it again. But in the earth, it was dreaming moonlight jingling off mangoes.
