Seven Years Ago

“Jenny? Are you alright?”

Mr Kalkowski, leaning on his stick, looks down from the bank which swoops down to the lake’s edge. A figure lies prone across a grassy mound by the pebbled shore.

She twists, squinting upwards, a hand against her eyes, against brilliant sunshine. “Hello, Mr Kalkowski. Yes, I’m fine. I was just watching this.” She waves a hand across a patch of reeds which edges the shore where a stream meets the lake.

Her teacher descends the slope carefully, using his stick as support while he guides himself along a six-inch wide, sheep-trotted path between slippery grassy hummocks. Drawing closer, he can see the elaborate zig-zag manoeuvres of dragonflies over the water. In brilliant shades of electric blue and iridescent green, their scintillating wings compete with the sparkle of the water for beauty and attention.

As he peers to see what holds her so spellbound, she points in close to where a brown-shelled monster is rising out of the water, climbing up a reed. Only a couple of inches long, it is a monster nonetheless. Then she points again to another, and another. Some are only just escaping their watery haven. Others have settled higher up the stems. Yet others have split open at the back of their ugly casing and something is squeezing its way out. And in one or two places, can be seen the escaped occupants sitting drying in the sunshine, their sheath an abandoned husk. Wings pump up and out and open with the coming promise of the shimmering beauty of their flying companions.

“Ah, yes,” comments the old man. “The emerging nymphs of Anisoptera.”

She glances at him, puzzled.

Dark eyes twinkle over the top of his spectacles. “Dragonflies to you and me,” he explains. “Anisoptera is the Latin designation for that order of insects.” He looks in more closely. “It is certainly an…. arresting sight. I do see why you would be taking the time to watch. Have you been here long?”

“About an hour, I think,” she replies. “Have you seen this before?”

“At times,” he nods. “But never such a mass… um…. emergence…. as this. “Would you mind if I join you to watch the spectacle?”

She smiles widely, displaying teeth which glint pearl, then shuffles up to make room.

Mr Kalkowski seats himself beside the teenage beauty, settling to watch the display. One after another of the larvae climbs slowly to winged freedom, shedding the water which clings upwardly to the reed stems in a smooth curve. Each one splits along a line down the back of its shell, partially escaping before pausing….

“What are they waiting for?”

“The exoskeleton is soft as it emerges,” replies the old man. “The legs have to harden in the air before they are strong enough to entirely pull the creature free from its prison.”

Above the water, the adult insects quarter the area in squadrons.

“Do you think those, are some of these?” she asks, pointing between adults and larvae.

gain its strength and true

do they do

are the nymphs…” He gestures at the emerging larvae…. “They will consume mosquito larvae and similar creatures. Even tadpoles and small fish. As adults, they will eat gnats, flies, mosquitoes, even butterflies and bees. Woe betide any small helpless creature that falls in their

think I like

are small and helpless.” He gestures towards speckled shapes in the stream, waving as they hold their position against the current. “Between trout below and dragonflies above, it is not a safe place to be.” He sniffs.

think I’ve

You might want to ask her to prepare it for

“With those?”

like to catch one? Take it home for

Actually, I don’t know

Jenny. And more

carefully, then hunkers down again, balancing on two flattish

dipping fingers below the surface to either side of the

gently lift the fish from the water, where it lies calmly in his hands, speckled scales gleaming opal and

stares at it. “Why doesn't

head. “No one really knows. One can speculate about perhaps a kind of hypnosis, but….” He shrugs…. “…. who can say what passes through the

screws up her face, feeling a

fairer, does it not? The battle between man and beast. Yes, no? But this feels like a kind of betrayal.

current. “Think of the story it could tell, Jenny, to its fellows, of its strange trip above the world of water, only to

“Fish don’t tell

tells a story, Jennifer.” He stands again, slowly, placing his feet carefully as he returns to his seat on the grassy hummock. “You should not

Her brows pucker...

you do not believe me.” He casts around at the pebbled shoreline, then stooping, picks up a stone.

“It's a pebble. It's pretty, with all those stripes, but

scrunches her face and he taps the end of her nose with the finger. “That pebble was once part of a much larger layer of rock, laid down millions of years ago as fine silt, perhaps

stares. “But how can you know

that of iron compounds when they form without air, the water stagnant for some reason. If we knew where this pebble came from,

awestruck, at the stone in

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