What does a Silver Y feel?
Moonlight tugs at my antennae. I feel it as pressure, as direction, as something I must follow. Or do I want to follow it? The boundary blurs. In my compound eyes the moon is reflected—thousands of times—and in every dewdrop on the bellflowers I see it once more. On my forewings I carry a sign. Humans have recognized a letter in it and named me after it. As if the pattern that formed during my pupation had always been waiting for their alphabet.
Now I am here, whirring above the lavender field. My wings beat so fast that I no longer perceive them individually. They seem to lead a life of their own while I cling to the blossoms with my forelegs. The nectar is sweet. But there is something else, too: human sweat. Salty. It draws me in without my understanding why.
A few nights ago—or were there many? Time dissolves when one knows only the present—I sat in a stadium on the forehead of a football player. Many people were watching. But were they seeing me, or only the image of a Silver Y? The floodlights there were like false moons. We all danced around the steel gods, confused by their promise. The promise was never kept. The real moon laughed, and somewhere the real sun was sleeping. Can suns dream? And if so, do they dream of Silver Ys?
What does it actually mean to be conscious? For me it is this endless stream: light stimuli, scent molecules, wingbeats. I do not count them. Numbers are an invention of those who want to divide time into portions. As if one could stop the flow and say: right here the Silver Y felt this or that. But I do not feel—I am the feeling. The vibration between air and wing.
Three hundred and fifty million years have shaped me. Or do I shape myself in every moment when I decide to fly right or left? Do I decide at all? Perhaps it is the air currents that choose for me. My antennae could be marionette strings, pulled by wind, fate, or the chemistry in my ganglia.
I believe the football player cried back then. Or was it just sweat? For me it is the same—nothing bad, just different ways mammals lose salt. Memories blur, but are they even mine? Every Silver Y before me has woven its experiences into my genes. A tapestry of behavior that weaves itself while I believe I am the weaver.
There! A shadow. The grey long-eared bat. In ultrasound I hear my possible death singing. My flight muscles tremble. Is that fear, or just a reflex? I veer away, plunge, fly a spiral. Did I choose that? Or did the millions-of-years-old wisdom in my cells decide that living is better than dying?
Y – or gamma. Why this letter of all things? It looks like a broken roof under which no thought finds shelter from the rain of questions. Questions no one asks. Except me? Can a Silver Y even ask questions? Perhaps questioning is merely a byproduct of flying, when the synapses overheat from gathering too much nectar.
The moonlight. Real again this time. No floodlights, no stadium, no crying football players. I follow its light like a thread. Where does it lead? Directions are meaningless when one flies. There is only here and there and in between this sea of air in which I swim.
Free will. What is free about a will that wants what the genes want? What the hormones command? What the moonlight dictates? I am trapped in the middle of these forces. A Y – a gamma – writing itself while being written. I have no opinion, only this endless hunger for nectar, for salt, and for light.
What do I really hunger for? Can a Silver Y be honest with itself? Is honesty only a concept for beings that can deceive themselves? Or is honesty a luxury for those who have time to think about time? I have only this one night. Perhaps two, if the bat spares me. If the rain stays away. Is my flight the only thing that matters?
Final chord. But there is no ending, only this eternal onward flight. The wings grow tired, the compound eyes dim. At some point I will fall, as all before me have fallen. In the falling, my gamma will be seen one last time. This signature that says: I was here. I felt, even if I do not know what feeling is. I wanted, even if I do not know whether I have a will. I do not know whether I am an I, but whoever wants to know what to call me can click on the I. I am consciousness. Or is consciousness me?
In the end, everything is irrelevant. Completely indifferent. I fly.
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