Remember, You Are Expendable
By A. Katherine Black
It’s said that when you stand or crouch, or float within the heart of an ecosystem, you feel its pulse behind your eyes. We can confirm this is true. At the very center of any ecosystem entity, the flora, fauna, and funga move with mystifying coordination. With awe-inspiring, terrifying coordination. Few humans are granted audience with these entities and return to tell the tale. Remember, it is a great honor to be among those few whether you return or not.
You were selected for this task because you are persistent. Your village council believes you have a fighting chance to reach the heart of your ecosystem, despite many dangers along the way. You are also thoughtful. You are patient. Attributes essential for a successful meeting with your ecosystem’s human interpreter who you’ll find has become quite other-personly, since merging with their appointed ecosystem entity.
Despite your many attributes, you may fail to reach your destination. You may arrive, but fail to communicate with your interpreter. You may arrive, communicate with your interpreter, but fail to return to your village. In which case don’t despair. You were also chosen because you are expendable. Your village council will simply appoint another to try again.
Do not rush into this task; it requires careful preparation. Climbing into caverns or sinking to the seafloor with nothing but a few supplies and your village’s earnest plea will certainly result in failure. You are not just a messenger. You are a diplomat. You must not only reach the heart of your ecosystem, you must sway the heart of your ecosystem. This begins with its human interpreter.
Before seeking an audience with your local ecosystem, we suggest you select a gift to present to its human interpreter. Choosing a gift may seem minor compared to the rough terrain and many fangs, and hungry eyes that await within the body of the ecosystem entity, nothing but a simple gesture to break the ice or sweep the sand, or part the vines, but believe me, your success depends heavily on choosing the right gift.
Please consider the following advice, collected from some who returned from their journeys also from some of us who did not.
1) Choose a gift that’s easy to carry.
An interpreter does not reside at the edge of their appointed entity, but deep within its protected core. Unlike the collective that is an ecosystem entity, humans are simple. Never more than two hands, two feet, and one back to carry their burdens. Your pack will weigh heavily with supplies not only for the long trip there, but also the trip back fingers crossed.
Choose a gift that is small, and do not worry about the size. Let us assure you for we have endured lifetimes of lessons from the gifts we once chose, even a gift that weighs nothing can be of great value.
2) Seek a gift in a distant region.
Ecosystem entities are vast, but each has its limit. They learn of faraway places from creatures who travel via leg, wing, or fin, and some say the occasional human who wanders too deep within and they express a perpetual hunger to know more about their neighbors. If you’re to beg for help from a forest system, consider enticing it with a necklace made of shells from the sea; meeting with a desert system, consider impressing it with a bouquet of dried flowers gathered from a tropical climate.
You were chosen because you have endurance. An extra trek to a neighboring ecosystem, or even a distant one, could mean the difference between success and failure between you seeing your village again, or not.
3) Ensure the gift is made of materials freely given.
Your local ecosystem will not react favorably to receiving a bauble that began in violence. Present a trinket of wood scooped from a tree without permission, or a statue carved from the bone of a creature slain by humans, and an ecosystem will know. How they know is a mystery some say theft scars the stolen material, like a scream branded on the soul.
Ecosystems understand the importance of balance in a way simple humans cannot in a way we ourselves previously could not. When faced with a life taken, an ecosystem entity will demand counterbalance. Please remember, you are expendable.
4) Know the history of the gift you offer, beyond the name of whoever pedaled the trinket.
Attribute the creation of your gift to a single, human individual, and your local ecosystem will surely pass judgement. Nothing comes to be by a single hand; a fact that humans often forget, but trust us when we say ecosystems do not. Tell your interpreter every detail about the gift; all you recount to the interpreter will be immediately known to their host entity as its tendrils burrow deep into their head to continuously sniff and nibble on their thoughts. Explain thoroughly and very carefully the origin of its materials, the dreams of those who crafted it, and the fears of those who pedaled it, and your ecosystem’s interest will gradually unfurl.
Do not embellish. Tremors in your words will disrupt pollen riding the breeze, flower petals will open to feel the flush of your cheeks. Do not exaggerate. Swarming insects will taste the thick of your sweat, shoals of fish will ride the rippled current of your stuttering pulse. Ecosystem entities are exceptional at sniffing out lies.
You were selected because you are considerate. Tell the truth, plain and complete, when you describe the origin and creation of your gift. Please the interpreter, impress the ecosystem, and they just may grant your village’s desperate request. And they just might let you go.
5) Learn the history of your interpreter before choosing a gift.
Interpreters live exceptionally long under the care of their ecosystem hosts, but no matter how many decades they’ve been away, their history will be recorded in village annals along with the history of brave souls like yourself. Dig into these annals. Discover where this interpreter was raised, what foods they ate, what activities they loved. Maybe they baked breads or played music, farmed crops or taught children.
Learn what role they hoped to play in their village before they were selected unexpectedly, unwillingly as interpreter, and then be sure absolutely, completely sure your gift does not remind them of the life they once dreamed of having. Any reminder of that life that life lost, that life stolen could cause eruptions of emotion in your interpreter that will disrupt communications and complicate your visit and endanger your life.
An interpreter’s distress will worry their host entity, and that entity in turn may consider your gift may consider you a threat. Remember, you are expendable you are thoughtful. You are capable of choosing the right gift. Please your interpreter, impress your local ecosystem, and you just may succeed and you just may return.
6) Choose a gift that appeals to multiple senses.
Human ears have little value in the ocean depths, after all. Eyes are next to useless in subterranean caves. This is why your village sends its plea in many forms: painted in ink, stamped in raised symbols, swirling in a vial of elders’ tears, and of course, impressed upon your mind. Do not presume you know which senses your local ecosystem interpreter will use.
Whether they used vision or hearing, smell or touch, once upon a time, their previous life is irrelevant. You may find the interpreter tucked so deep within the snare of their host ecosystem entity that they appear unable to sense anything at all. But remember, even if they’re tangled in a wall of vines or covered by a colony of coral, or encased in a bed of stone, even if you see no exposed eyes and no free hands, your interpreter is tapped into all the resources trapped under all the might of their host ecosystem entity.
Instead of reaching out with human limbs to accept your gift, the interpreter may send forth a line of ants or a cast of crabs, or a cluster of spiders to climb up your legs and across your belly, over your shoulders and down your arms to touch, smell, otherwise inspect the gift.
You are patient.
No matter what swarms your limbs and coats your body, and digs at your skull while you greet the interpreter, describe your gift with patience with an even tone, with slow movements. Center yourself as the interpreter and their host system explore what you bring and explore what you are.
7) Choose a gift that relates to your village’s request.
You have been selected for this task because your village is in dire need of something your local ecosystem can provide if it so chooses. If it’s medicine from the entity’s protected herbs to treat a new illness, consider presenting a gift crafted by someone who suffers from that illness. If it’s the assistance of insects or crustaceans to better pollinate sustenance-giving plants, consider offering a food made from ingredients provided by those plants. Bring the interpreter and their host ecosystem the perfect gift, and they just may provide the help your village so desperately needs. And they just may allow you to return to your village to share the wonderful news.
You were chosen because you feel the pain of those around you. Your neighbors’ suffering chips at your heart. The uncertainty of their future rakes at your mind. As you understand the importance of this task, we urge you to understand the importance of this gift. If you offer something that fails to impress your interpreter or worse, offends the ecosystem to which they’re tethered, you, yourself, may become the gift.
Final Note: Be aware, your disappointed ecosystem entity may choose to keep invite you to remain as an indefinite guest or companion to the interpreter, to care for them until their physical body disintegrates. Maybe, if you are very unlucky fortunate indeed, you will be chosen invited to become the entity’s new human interpreter.
If you thrill at the thought of becoming an interpreter trust us when we say it is a most horrific honor, feel free to toss aside the above advice and simply present yourself as a gift to your local ecosystem. Your village elders, desperate as they surely are, will be encouraged by your sacrifice swift arrival to the heart of your ecosystem entity, having no need to journey far and wide in search of the perfect gift. Your ecosystem’s interpreter will be thrilled to have a companion and relieved they’ll soon be at peace, their worries about a replacement happily set aside.
You were chosen for this task because you are selfless. Offering yourself to your local ecosystem entity to heroically save your village is an opportunity others only dream of. And do not fear the integration process. It may be slow, but you are resilient. Your eyes may be buried, but soon you will see so very far. Your hands may atrophy, but your touch will spread wide and distant. You are brave.
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A. Katherine Black lives in Minnesota with her family, cats, and coffee machines. She loves snowstorms, board games, and all kinds of creature flicks, but especially the ones where the creature is the good guy. Find her at flywithpigs.com or on bluesky @akatherineblack.bsky.social.
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