A bird had just shit on my head. That wasn't a good start to a walk that was supposed to clear my head. Looking down, I passed a gruesome sight. A group of dead caterpillars were sprayed about on a single sidewalk square.
Here's what happened:
They call it the Caterpillar Massacre of 1937 (the caterpillar Jesus came a few years after the human version). A group of caterpillars smooshed another group, simply because the victims were a little bit darker than the perpetrators. After months of hate-speech, a simple misunderstanding sparked one of the worst tragedies in the history of caterpillars.
One of the so-called darker male caterpillars asked out one of the so-called "lighter" female caterpillars. Another "lighter" caterpillar overheard the conversation and took it as an attack against the "malehood" of the "lighter" caterpillars. The episode pushed tensions over the edge as the "lighter" caterpillars had been feeling that jobs were taken away from them. The eavesdropping caterpillar rounded up his posse and they struck again and again leaving in their wake the horrifying carnage I witnessed.
The shame of it is that we'll never know how many of the victimized caterpillars were going to turn into beautiful butterflies. But caterpillars are such primitive creatures. They don't possess the capacity to know any better. It's not an excuse; it's the sad reality of the situation. Rest in peace valiant caterpillars, rest in peace.
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