Gentlebug Farmer

Kevin Knight

Jackoria Cortiginous Beziria combed her giant antennae excitedly. She threw on her best carapace cover and jumped into her spaceship. 

Goodbye! 

Goodbye to smoggy, crowded Lepidotropolis, capital of planet Entemon! 

Using super-light drive, she flew quickly to Earth and landed in the village of Arrearsville. She burst into one of the primitive human structures, out of breath.

"Howdy!" she said, wriggling through the doorway. Three women and a dog looked up at her. "As this is my first rodeo, come to Jesus, could you please direct me to the Weaver farm?"

The women regarded her amiably. One of them scratched her nose.

"Weaver ain't there," said one woman.

"That ain't present no problem," Jackoria said. "By the by, my name is Jackoria Cortiginous Beziria, pleased to make your acknowledgment." She clacked her middle legs against her chitinous shell, excited to finally be employing the local language that she had laboriously mastered.

"What?" said the woman.

"Cortiginous Beziria, Jackoria Cortiginous Beziria," she said.

"It don't speak English," opined one of the other women.

"I heard it say Jack," said the first woman. She turned to Jackoria. "Is your name Jack?"

"Yes! English name Jackie," she said. "Regular old down-home name."

One of the women extended a hand.

"My name's Billie Hereford," said the woman. "And this here's Miz Miller and Miz Rainey."

"And this lady?" said Jackie, pointing at the hound dog on the floor.

"That's Ben," said Billie Hereford.

"Nice to have knowledge of you," Jackie told the dog. The dog looked away, uninterested.

"Are you here to eat our crops?" asked Miz Miller.

"No, ma'am! Though I realize that I do appear to be a larger version of your economically destructive insects called logrus--"

"Locusts," said Billie Hereford, helpfully.

"Exactly!" said Jackie. "But contradiction-wise, I am here to plant brand-spanking new crops like god-dang corn and tomatoes, right here in the Weaver farm ground!"

"Weaver ain't there," repeated Miz Rainey. "He moved away."

"Known," said Jackie. "I purchased his plot, and I will move in with my husband next week!"

Billie Hereford stroked her chin and said, "Are you saying ... that you paid Mister Weaver hard Lepidopteran currency for that land he's got there?"

"Yes, ma'am!" said Jackie.

"Well, now," Billie Hereford went on, "you wouldn't, by any chance, be interested in buying some more prime farmland down this way? I happen to know of--"

"And," interrupted Miz Rainey, "maybe you have some bug girlfriends who also want to buy up some other farms around here?"

Jackie could see the women side-eyeing each other, which, she knew from her study-mastery, meant they were sending telepathic messages.

"Have not a worry, four gentlewomen, well-met. I slap your backs heartedly," said Jackie. She tried to casually ease down into an empty chair, but one of her podomeres became enmeshed between two floorboards, so she stood back up to her full three-meter height and continued, "I assure you there will be no gentrification of your idyllic farm village. No more of us will come around offering top dollar to owners, pushing good folks out of their homes, forcing them off-planet to engage in low-remunerative activities."

The women looked at her.

"What?" said Billie Hereford.

"You all retain your farms!" said Jackie. 

The women looked disappointed. The hound dog laid its head on the floor. Jackie continued, "I stand with you, proud farmers who make crops that feed the economic vertebrae!"

For a long time, Jackie had looked forward to living among these simple folk, away from the hectic legal-electronic-social-military nerve center of Lepidotropolis. To be frank, these women were even simpler than she anticipated, especially the hairy one lying on the floor. How refreshing, thought Jackie. Now she was off to fix up the Weaver place, and then she would fly back to Lepidotropolis one last time to fetch her husband, Evantrolino Partivorius Strassivulus.

   * * *

"Jackoria Cortiginous Beziria," said Evantrolino, sweetly but sternly.

"Do you mean me?"

"Of course I mean you!" said Evantrolino.

"Why, the name's Jackie, mister," she said, inclining her head, inadvertently hitting him with one of her giant antennae.

"Jackie," he said, sitting them both down. "Must we go to Earth?"

"You will absolutely love it there," said his wife.

    * * *

Evantrolino Partivorius Strassivulus tick-tacked down the main street of the Earth village. There wasn't much to do at the farmhouse. He was bored. He went to the general store and squeezed his huge insect frame through the doorway.

"Hello, ladies," he said.

"Hello, Evan," said Miz Miller.

"Hello," said Miz Hereford.

The two women were playing cards.

"It's a hot day," he said.

"Tolerably so," said Miz Miller, without looking up.

Evan put his middle hands on his hips and shifted his weight.

"So hot," he said.

"Mmm," said Miz Hereford.

"I wonder if one of you ladies could offer me a hypothermic libation," said Evan.

"Come again?" said Miz Miller.

"I mean a cold drink," said Evan. He leaned back slowly, allowing his carapace to click softly against the wall.

"You want a Coke?" said Miz Miller.

"Sure," said Evan.

"What kind? We got Coke, Pepsi, and Sprite."

"That sounds so good," said Evan.

Miz Hereford interrupted. "Are we gonna play cards, Miller? Or talk sugar drinks with Mister Bug?"

"Okay, okay," said Miz Miller.

She pointed Evan toward the Coke machine and returned to the game. As Evan skittered toward the vending machine, he suddenly began to worry. Had he overdone it with his overtures? These women were clearly drawn to him. They could barely resist him. But if they talked, word might get back to his wife, and she would become angry with him.

Evan smiled to himself. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

   * * * 

Jackie Cortiginous Beziria saw her first farm while serving in the Lepidotropan Armed Forces. Her unit was stationed on Alpha 2, protecting the agricultural planet from the Reptile forces of Poikilotherm. While most soldiers complained that there was nothing to do on Alpha 2, Jackie relished the opportunity to study crop rotation, planting distances, and irrigation.

Standing in Miz Miller's general store, Jackie regaled Miz Miller with stories of that time.

"Army or navy?" asked Miz Miller, distractedly.

"Space armada!" Jackie said, proudly. "But my military discharge did not end as desired, and then my queen mother assigned me to run computer operations for her refrigeration business. On Lepidotropolis, slave races are volunteered to serve as sentient refrigerators, hanging from ceilings in vast caverns. We feed them mouth-to-mouth, storing food inside their bellies. Sadly, I failed to write the correct computer program to track the feeding schedules."

"Uh huh," said Miz Miller.

"Exactly! Cavern revolt! The little subject bugs came spilling out, surface-wise, overrunning a suburb where the Legal Counsel for Sub-Minister for Financial Technologies lived, and she was angrier than the proverbial snake that married the irrigation tube!"

"Garden hose," said Miz Miller.

"Bless you," said Jackie, which she knew to be the customary response to nasal extrusion.

"So ... anything you'd like to buy?" said Miz Miller, motioning around the general store.

"Aw, yeah. Bid-ness," said Jackie. "Fifty tons of tomato seeds, please."

"We got them little packets over there," said Miz Miller, pointing.

"Truth be told," said Jackie, glancing side to side, "never mind about the bid-ness. By the by, sweet Jesus, I declare I have actually arrived to discuss a confidential matter of some delectability."

"I'll forgive you for getting straight to the point," said Miz Miller.

"It's about Evantrolino Partivorius Strassivulus."

"Is that some Italian dish?" asked Miz Miller.

"A dish, yes," said Jackie. "But not from your Italian peninsula. I make reference to my attractive husband. Word has returned to me that several women in this village have been passing at him. Making logical propositions, if you get my meaning, ma'am." She paused. "By the disgusted look on your face, I see that you do."

"Well," said Miz Miller carefully, "there's people around here who like to invent tall tales, so you might be skeptical of your source."

Angrily, Jackie pulled up to her full, three-meter height. "My husband himself told me this! It came straight from his oral cavity!"

Well, don't this put me in an awkward position, thought Miz Miller to herself. She scratched her head. It seemed that she either had to call Jackie's husband a liar, or else agree that he'd been carrying on around town.

Jackie began clacking around the room, and a fearful look came to Miz Miller's face.

"This is high noon, sister!" said Jackie. "What is it likely to be?"

"Aw, fuck," said Miz Miller.

With a quick swipe of her razor-sharp foreleg, Jackie Cortiginous Beziria neatly severed the head of Miz Miller. 

As she licking the woman's blood off her leg, Jackie quietly celebrated her down-home conflict resolution skills. Back on bloodless Lepidotropolis, a dozen lawyers would have been called in, each specialized in some arcane corner of harassment legislation. 

Satisfied, she sauntered back to her farm.

    * * * 

"The police are here," said Evan Partivorius Strassivulus as he peered through the farmhouse window.

"I will pass through the door to greet," said Jackie, wondering what in the dang-all heck this was all about. Perhaps the police were here to help her with the matter of the property line separating her farm from Miz Hereford's. For some reason, Miz Hereford could not manage to see how the creek-bed was a much more logical delineator than the current fencing arrangement.

Jackie click-clacked down the outside porch stairs. From her study-mastery, she knew that Earth police required obsequy.

"Officer!" said Jackie. "It is my humble honor to participate as a member of this community of farmers, and by my presence bring notoriety and a certain je ne se quoi to this previously remote and unrecognized provincial sub-sector."

The policewoman, sweating, kept her distance.

"Yes, well ..." she said.

"Now, because I will not easily fit into your vehicle," said Jackie, "I recommend that we separately travel to the Hereford residence, where we can discuss the matter of the property line." Jackie turned to mount her horse, but it promptly ran off without her.

"Actually," said the policewoman. "I'm here about the murder."

"What murder?" asked Jackie.

The policewoman did not respond immediately, instead pretending to study a small notebook she held in her hand.

"A ... Miz Miller," she said.

"Ah!" said Jackie. "Yes, we settled our differences in the time-honored style. Now I see. There are perhaps laws regarding small bounties of restitution that must be paid to the relatives of the bereaved. Evan!"

Jackie turned around to find her husband already leaning provocatively against the front doorframe.

"This is no time for your shenanigans, Evan!" she shouted in exasperation. "Fetch our checkbook, so that I may remunerate the good officer."

Jackie turned back and said to the policewoman, "I'm so sorry. He'll be the death of me." She twisted her mandibles into the shape of a human smile. The policewoman took an involuntary step backward, which made Jackie wonder if she'd made the correct facial expression. She made a mental note to practice in front of a mirror.

"Ahem," said the policewoman. "As to your differences with Miz Miller, would you care to come down to the station and give a statement?"

Jackie checked the position of the sun. "Not to trouble you at all, but it's better to give you my statement in the here and now. To wit, Miz Miller called my husband a scarlet man. Or perhaps a liar. Either way, we were about to have a god-danged blood feud on our hands. So I settled it, Old West style, according to the customs of this locale."

"This is North Carolina," said the policewoman.

"Exactly," said Jackie. She looked back and saw Evan still leaning against the doorway. The man was ungovernable. Turning back, Jackie leaned her huge chitinous frame over the policewoman and said, "Look at him. The sad truth is that I fear that my husband truly is a scarlet man. Looking at him, wouldn't you have to agree?"

The policewoman struggle to come up with an answer.

What an idiot my wife is, thought Evan Partivorius Strassivulus. Why had he even agreed to come to Earth? And to give it a full Lepidopteran year? At least if he didn't like it after that, and he wouldn't, then they could return home and forget the whole thing.

Tired of watching his wife argue with the policewoman, Evan went into the kitchen and fixed himself a drink. Evan's mother had told him not to marry Jackie. When Evan was a university student in Lepidotropolis, he was cast in a production of "Our Great Empire." But then his burgeoning acting career was put on permanent pause by his marriage to Jackoria.  "Now, Evan, let's be practical," his wife Jackie had said. As if planting corn were practical.

As Evan sat fuming, he suddenly felt a familiar pressure in his abdomen. Irritated by the timing, he stalked into the guest bedroom and laid several dozen eggs. Ugh. 

He returned to the porch again, wiping one foreleg against the other, just in time to see the policewoman take a step backward and pull her gun. Evan picked up his drink and steadied himself in the doorframe. Here we go, he thought. He felt dizzy.

Jackie spit acid on the policewoman's face, dissolving it instantly. At the sight of that, Evan fainted.

Jackie screamed. She ran to her husband and scooped him up with her forelegs.

"Oh, God," Evan said, his multi-faceted eyes rolling around every which way. Jackie carried Evan to the police car. In the back seat was a small hairy woman, the one that usually lay on the floor of the general store.

"Madam, we must get my husband to a doctor immediately!" Jackie exclaimed.

The woman looked the other way. Another frustrating local. Jackie pulled the hairy woman out of the car and stuffed her husband in. As she pressed on Evan's appendages, one of his antennae broke off. Never mind, thought Jackie, it will grow back. She folded herself into the driver's seat. From her study-mastery, she knew that there was a button to extrude police soundwaves, but she couldn't find it, so she pressed down hard on the accelerator.

As she steered down the driveway, a great noise erupted, and the police car flew into the air. An improvised explosive device had exploded just under the dirt road. The car hit the ground and rolled over twice.

"Shoot!" said Jackie.

Using her chitinous head, she broke through the front windshield and scrabbled out. Planting her hindlegs firmly, she flipped the car back over. After she pulled Evan out of the back seat, she grabbed his midsection in her mandibles. She'd have to carry him into town. It was just as well, because she could run almost as fast as a car.

After half an hour, Jackie reached the doctor's front porch. She laid her husband down, releasing her mandible grip.

"Oh, darling," said Evan Partivorius Strassivulus, looking up at her.

Jackie knocked feverishly on the door.

"Country doctor! Country doctor!" she shouted.

A woman opened the door and held up an index finger. She was speaking on a cell phone. After a moment, she put the phone down. "Howdy, what can I do you for?" she asked.

"My husband," panted Jackie. "He had a spell."

The woman rubbed her chin and said, "Well, I don't know much about bug biology, but this one seems to be missing an antenna."

"It accidentally snapped off--" said Jackie, impatiently, still breathing hard from the run. "--snapped off when I compacted him into the law enforcement vehicle. But that's neither here nor anywhere."

"What?" drawled the doctor.

As Jackie and the doctor talked, Evan Partivorius Strassivulus died. His chemical signature changed, and he began to release the enzymes of a decaying corpse. 

Jackie prepared for other colony members to come and remove the body to a random position at some fixed distance. She would argue with the colony members, of course, insisting that Evan's body was not diseased, thus posing no immediate infection threat. But the workers would keep scrabbling around until they got a firm grip on the body.

Oh no, thought Jackie, suddenly realizing that, in fact, no colony workers would be arriving, because she was alone on Earth. At that moment, Jackie felt an autonomic response kick in. She picked up Evan's body herself and set off to remove it to a random position outside the city limits.

Crazy bugs, thought the country doctor. A hundred years ago, it was the crazy reptiles, and then it was the crazy eels. Maybe we're crazy too, she figured.

Jackie didn't realize it, but she too was rapidly dying, mainly of old age, but also heartbreak. She would die before she made it to the city limits. Back at the farmhouse, though, the eggs were hatching.

c 2022