“Then you sit here,” I said, laying it on my sleeping bag, atop a pile of leaves I’d gathered from the nearby brush. The cocoon seemed delighted, but it may have been my imagination.
I heard the water start to bubble and lowered the gas so it wouldn’t boil over. The rising steam soon faded into the cold morning air and the darkness of the woods.
Oh, oh, at last!
At last we can become thread! Oh, oh!
The cocoons’ voices sounded like the residents of a snow-locked land greeting the arrival of spring.
I picked them up with shaking hands. For some reason, my throat felt parched. I gritted my teeth, shook the voices from my minds, and dropped them into the boiling water.
Plop.
Such a dull sound.
I could no longer hear the cocoons’ voices. They were as quiet as they’d been originally. Nothing about them indicated they’d ever given off such a beautiful, bluish light.
I boiled them a while, turning them with a tiny broom made from fallen twigs. The sticky surface loosened. Threads began spreading out in the water, so I gathered those threads on a twig. As it was still fairly dark, this was easier said than done.
Groaning, I finally got all four. I pulled the threads, gathered them together, and reached for the empty spool. I spent quite some time simply winding away.
A cocoon could produce up to 1,500 meters of silk thread.
Between the water’s heat and the tension, sweat ran down my brow and back.
“Why did you want to become thread?” I asked, without realizing I was saying it aloud.
That is what they want from us, a soft voice answered.
Not the vibrant voice I’d first heard at night. This one was more graceful, gentler.
Forgetting to watch my work, I looked toward the voice. Something silver lay on my sleeping bag.
A pair of feelers, like two combs, emerged; silver hair, and silver eyebrows. White skin, like cotton.
The eyes looked almost human but were a solid, glittering black. I saw no mouth.
Its clothes boasted large, fluffy sleeves. The entire outfit appeared to be made of fur, with shining silver flecks dancing all over it—were they scales?
Its belly looked swollen, like it was pregnant.
“You’re that silkworm?” I asked.
Please, keep working.
I remembered I was supposed to be winding thread and quickly looked back to the pot. If I boiled them too long, that would be awful. I only had these four cocoons.
Thank you for hearing our request, traveler from the far, far west.
“I just boiled all your friends to death.”
The silkworm laughed softly.
Our insect lives ended long before you boiled them. But this is their proper destiny, just as mine is to lay these eggs.
“But why?”
I spoke to the cocoons. This time, I didn’t stop my hands… No, that’s not right. It wasn’t that I didn’t stop them; I couldn’t. It was like someone else was moving my hands for me.
We are born of human hands.
The silkworm laughed. It seemed to do that a lot.
Because we are boiled and turned into thread, our numbers increase. We are venerated, and we are valued.
Wind, wind, wind. The spool turned.
If we do not become thread, we can no longer be ourselves. If we do not leave children behind, we can create no more thread.
A gust of salt-tinged wind darted between my hands, and the winding threads wavered.
“Even if that’s true,” I gasped, the words forcing themselves out of me. “If you want to live, you can eat mulberry leaves, become pupa in your cocoons, then emerge from them. Isn’t it scary to have someone else decide who becomes thread? To have that choice taken from you?”
Someone had decided I should be like this.
I’d never wanted magic talent, to have that potential.
All I’d wanted was to stay in my hometown, be normal, put down roots, live with family and friends, and grow old.
Perhaps we felt that way once. Perhaps even now.
The silkworm didn’t seem upset. It spoke with a soft, musical voice.
We consume mulberry to live, weave cocoons to live, emerge from them to live, and lay eggs before we die.
The silkworm didn’t move at all. Its unblinking eyes stared fixedly at the pot. I could feel its gaze even as I reeled in the thread. Those eyes showed no pity, no sadness, no anger—just joy.
Human hands changed us. Though we can no longer live without human hands, we go on living. Even if our lives can only be fulfilled like this, we continue as long as we can.
The thread wound on, turning, turning, and turning some more. I’d lost all sense of time.
We know, and we remember.
Beyond the forest depths, I glimpsed growing trees I’d never seen before.
Somehow I knew they were mulberries. I strained my eyes and could faintly make out strange wooden houses. Between the mulberries, people went to and fro, clutching large bundles of leaves. Sweating, laboring, smiling…Oh, I thought.
This is where these cocoons came from.
Human houses are warm, comfortable, free from predators.
It was warm inside those wooden boxes. The silkworms would never freeze. They were fed all the mulberry leaves they could eat.
There were many delicious mulberry leaves. From time to time, a large cat would look in, eyes gleaming.
The cats would catch the awful rats.
Gnarled human fingers touched us gently, carefully.
Hands that reeled so much silk they changed shape, turned red.
So very warm.
The silkworm never moved, yet I felt it looking up at the sky.
Ah… I hear the sound of flutes.
In the distance, a ship bound for foreign lands issued a steam whistle.
That’s the festival song.
Around us, the trees rustled in the wind.
Spring comes, bringing warmth. We hatch, our children hatch.
Behind me, cloth rustled. Was the silkworm dancing? Or was it crying, crying while smiling?
Sleep, sleep, green, green, soft leaves…
Before I knew it, I’d reeled all the thread.
If I left it like this, the threads would stick to each other. I needed to re-reel them on the spinning wheel. Where in my backpack had I put it? I’d made enough stock that I hadn’t touched it in a while. Worried, I turned toward my pack.
The humanoid silkworm was gone.
A dead silkworm remained, fully emerged from the cocoon, its wings outstretched.
Not one egg had hatched from its large, glistening belly. And without mating, the eggs wouldn’t live even if released. Even if the worm had mated, there was no mulberry here for them to eat.
Silkworms cannot live without human hands and homes.
Moaning, I took the pupa from the bottom of the pot, dug a little hole at the base of a tree, and buried them. I tried convincing myself they’d been dead long before I boiled them, but even if that were true, boiling them had killed them once more. No matter what anyone said, I had boiled them. I had turned them into thread.
I buried the silkworm that had rested on my sleeping bag in the same hole.
I filled in the dirt and patted it firm.
The burial complete, a noise escaped me.
Even if our lives can only be fulfilled like this, we continue as long as we can, it had said. It had smiled. Yet it hadn’t left the eggs it wished to. Not here.
“I have to reel it.”
I searched my backpack and drew out a small spinning wheel. The thread probably required a proper machine, but this was all I had with me. I had to re-reel it quickly.
I had to give meaning to them.
Applying just a little magic so the thread wouldn’t snap or tangle, I spun the wheel. There should’ve been far more thread than this, so if an ordinary human had tried, it would’ve been ruined almost immediately. Without magic, I could never have done it.
It’s just what fate has in store for us.
As my mind spun, Eugene’s words from yesterday flooded my head. Oh. That was right. I felt like laughing out loud.
The past thirty years of drifting had led me here. I’d left my family, my friends, lost my master. Because I couldn’t use suggestive magic or transformative magic, I had no home, and drifted from town to town, country to country.
To save silkworms that wished to fulfill their purpose.
I was sure, almost sure, that was why.
“You’re right, Eugene.”
The wheel spun on, as if my words had spurred it.
The thread came along. It did, indeed, gleam like a silver star.
I’d gathered only a small amount. I wondered what I should make from it, my head hazy from lack of sleep. Buy a little extra silk, weave it on a loom? Use it for embroidery? Weave it into an accessory? Even though I hadn’t asked for the responsibility of reeling them, I knew the final result had to be something good. That’s just how I was.
“If I didn’t think like that, I could never live an unending life.”
I chuckled. There was a desperation to it that surprised me.
Being forced into an awful role for thirty years was hardly pleasant. Yet the morning had brought a beautiful blue sky. I was starving after my sleepless night, and my rumbling stomach thought that coffee and cinnamon rolls sounded very appealing.
When I finished this work, I’d return to the harbor.
Maybe I’d find Eugene snoring in front of the Havis Amanda, having been unable to afford a room for the night. Maybe I’d kick him in the ass and force him to buy me breakfast as punishment for foisting all this work on me. Who cared if he refused?
I spun the wheel faster, relying on the magic.
In the bright morning light, the thread glittered like laughter.
The End