I am a Mayfly. I live for a day. My life consists of nothing but coitus. To some this kind of life would be ideal, the best that they could imagine, but I wanted to make something of myself, hit the big city, the high rollers. I had at most a couple of hours to make anything I did count, so what harm could it do to dream big?
My mother laid me and a bunch of others as a pile of eggs on the skin of a murky river and left. She abandoned us and expected the group to just fend for ourselves. But you know what, it’s cool. I’ve lived a good 75% of my adult life already and I’ve learnt to forgive her. I’m sure she had other things to do with her twenty-four hours than just sit there and waste her one day of life waiting for us to hatch.
So, when I did eventually hatch I moulted my skin a couple of times. I was a nervous Naiad and a late bloomer, so that took a couple more months than everyone else. You see, some people get the wrong idea about us Mayflies. They think that once you’ve hatched, then that’s it, you just fly away and the next day you drop dead as soon as the sun comes up. It’s actually a lot more complicated than that. It takes a good couple of months for us to even grow wings than to lift off the ground! Its only when we grow the wings that the clock starts ticking.
So I had my awkward teenage stage. But, once I came to grips with the fact that my sole purpose in life was to find a female and make magic happen, I got another bomb shell dropped on me. Turns out I’m not at the top of any particular food chain, not even close! I found out I was at the bottom when my friend Jimmy got eaten by a fish. A fish! Not even squished by the windscreen of a speeding lorry! That’s when thought to myself “Handsome, as soon as you grow them wings, don’t waste your day hanging around any puddles,” if you know what I mean!
My main goal in life was to reproduce. Maybe I should rephrase that. A mayfly’s goal in life is to reproduce. But I wasn’t any old mayfly. I was the Mayfly, I was destined for greatness, and I could feel it in my gut! So when I finally grew those silvery beauts on my back I headed straight for the lights, straight for New York City.
Now Mayflies can’t talk, we haven’t got any mouths. Our digestive system is full of air, it’s virtually empty. So there wasn’t much to work with when it came to talking the talk. I was at a disadvantage and my life was already a few hours into the day. That’s when I met a mosquito called Sam. He saw something in me that he hadn’t seen in any other species; two penises! And since there weren’t many other Mayflies around I was unique. Sam introduced me to a couple of High end Ladybirds and told me they would take good care of me. Who was I to complain? I was taken under their wing cases, and here I am a good few hours later, in the prime of my adulthood, minted. Sure, I’m not fulfilling my life’s goal of reproducing, and yes I probably can’t show my face around back at home, but to be honest, being a play boy fly to these red spotted gals means this is turning out to be a very good day.
Bhavland 