Franklin was a bug;

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he was tiny, to you. To him he was normal sized. I thought about time, and how even language had a time; because he still is a bug, but he was a bug too. Soon he will be dead and he wondered what he will be then. Franklin is a bug, for now, but I don’t know when you will read this, maybe when you read it he wont be a bug anymore. So franklin was a bug to you, then maybe you don’t know what a bug is, so what was Franklin to you?

He often wondered how someone else’s thoughts can change who he is, but if he didn’t know, would he know?

Franklin was a writer (is) and that was his secret. Where he was from bugs aren’t writers. He had a job and it was given to him by everyone. As if everyone has always known and the reason he is here, in the dirt mound they call society, was to do this job. He thought about how time is even in status,

‘I am a writer’ he would whisper to himself until one day he realised he was sitting instead of writing. So therefore he was a sitter, but even that wouldn’t be allowed.

His job was to walk to Burwood and grab a piece of rice and then walk back. The day was three trips long. Sometimes it felt like less and sometimes more and he realised that even trips to get rice had different times each day. Which could be a theory he makes up.

Sunday it was only two trips because they all went to church. Franklins mum loved church and he loved his mum so he loved it too. His mum would feed him and made him grow and gave him a body, so he always listened to what she told him to do, even when she was wrong. Franklin found it strange that someone who has been here less than another could know more.

Sitting in the church the priest spoke the same sermon as last week and all the ones before. It always felt long so he would go places in his mind and leave his body there. He went to the moon this day and bounced around on it. Franklin loved the moon because it was such a beautiful light. It made the grass a different colour than the sun did. One day he was told that the suns light is actually the moons.

“Then why does it make the grass a different colour if it’s the same light?” He asked his colleague who carried rice on his back,

“Dunno,” He replied.

So Franklin kept the belief that the moon made its own light.

Franklin thought about the dish his mum used to make.

“Veg curry with Chapati,” She called it.

It had green and orange in it, and red and it was a bit brown and it had some white in it which was called potato.

“Its not rice its potato,” Mum said.

I don’t know how to cook it because I never asked. I never asked because it was so normal.

Dad would tell him, “Don’t tell anyone, but its growing. Do not tell anyone Franklin! Do you hear me?”

“Yessss Dad,” He would reply, another demand like all the rest.

“We don’t need to be eating all that Rice. We have too much rice already anyway! Look at this, vegetable curry with chapatis! We don’t need to be going and getting the rice anymore. We could live off the land like this. Enough people stop eating rice and soon they will realise. Then every day will be free. We can advance as a society without this constant need of control through labour! We can create new things, beautiful things!”

Then one day I forgot and told my friend and they took my parents away, now I eat rice, its not too bad.

My friend couldn’t imagine things, I couldn’t imagine him not imagining things, but we were friends anyway. Then I thought, my friend is like my body, he cant go anywhere but where they tell him either. Sometimes my body gets sad and I know why. I say sorry body.

“We are all from the same light,” Said the priest and brought him back to his body,

“How was the trip?” Said the body,

“Good” Replied the mind.

Two bugs next to him that he had never seen before spoke in a different language. Franklin spoke Buginese and thought all bugs did, but these ones didn’t.

“Who are they?” Franklin asked Keith who sat beside him,

Keith lent forward to look.

“Two Bugs from the mountains. They own motels. Came to this church because its Bugmas.”

Franklin couldn’t believe it. He didn’t know there was another place let alone another language. They kept laughing; the two bugs. It made franklin sad because he didn’t know why. Their language reminded him of his favourite artist, Salvador Buggy. Salvador Buggy was an abstract painter. His paintings didn’t make sense so you could put them together how you liked. Then maybe everyone put them back together the same way or just slightly different. Franklin thought that was cool because you get to make a story to compare with another and see the mind, which you can’t usually see. Their language was like a Buggy painting and Franklin could put it together how he liked. This had been a sadness in the thin legs of Franklin when he wrote. He imagined they were laughing about an animal called a penguin.

Words are so obvious, they are just one thing, wouldn’t it be cool to write something that didn’t make sense? But no one would like it.

Franklin thought about who he thinks about when he writes and thought he must be writing for them. But the bugs he wrote for didn’t like what he liked, so he just thought of himself.

“I am a writing” He would say when he wrote.

Franklin could only ever write in his mind. It’s the only place he could. He even wrote Salvador Buggy in there and he paints and shows him the painting.

“I wish I could do that” Said the body,

“Sorry” Replied Salvador Buggy.

Franklin felt something bad going to happen. All the stories in his head were scary stories. He wondered where they come from. Maybe the body is learning to go to places too. He wasn’t allowed to talk for another 48 minutes. So he decided to wait and tell his friend that he felt something bad was going to happen.

It was at 43 minutes to go where things got worse for Franklin. He could feel his heart running away.

Now things were the opposite. The mind was telling the body to come back. To stay. His mind tried to have a look and see where it was going, it was not good. Black oil pouring into the cathedral that turns into the sun and kills them all. Still 43 minutes to go until he can leave but now he thinks he has to tell everyone to save them. They would kill him, he thought. And they would. The bugs who spoke a different language were laughing. He tried to think about words and how they are like spells. How they bend you to submission and have a weight to them. But, like him, someone could change the definition of the word. Franklin changed them all the time. He called work meditation. And when it felt bad he thought that is good, because meditation is good, meditation is accepting whatever your moment is, so he accepted bad and then he felt good. So he tried to meditate. But the feeling of the body wasn’t a word, he didn’t know what it was, so he couldn’t accept it, so it stayed bad.

Franklin was sad because he wanted to laugh at their spells. How can they be doing that and I don’t know what they’re doing, he thought.

Things kept getting worse and he couldn’t feel his legs. He was not sure if he could move even if he could.

“Keith, something bad is going to happen”

“Shut up”

“I'm serious. We need to leave”

“I said shut up Franklin”

“But K-“

Keith punched Franklin in the leg and stopped his sentence. He didn’t feel it but he saw it. Well, he did feel it it was just a different type of feeling. Sometimes people say they can’t feel their legs because they can’t feel all of them, Franklin didn’t know why.

The feeling was undeniable and Franklin knew he was going to have a heart attack if he didn’t leave. He was dead either way. So he thought of excuses to leave. He used his superpower, his imagination. He thought about his dad and how he had an imagination. That’s why he knew about the Rice. But if it was true, maybe the ones who believe in eating Rice have a better imagination. Then he was sad because he didn’t have a superpower anymore, it was the opposite.

I will tell them I only got one rice and I have to go back to get the second… no, they don’t allow those mistakes.

I will tell them God told me something bad is going to happen… no, God only speaks to the priest.

I will tell them the two non-Buginese speakers are spy’s sent here to kill us all!... No, they’re laughing.

Soon he thought he could just sneak out. But his legs weren’t feeling very sneaky. Eventually he got up and left. Mind and body worked together; what was left of the body anyway.

“I'm going to be sick!” Said Franklin,

A big gasp from the crowd around him. He burst through the doors back to his body who waited outside. Together with their alliance he jumped as far as he could, he imagined he was on the moon again. Floating through the air he could see that no oil was around. Then he felt very silly. He was wrong. There was no Da- BANGGGGG!

A big explosion came from inside the church. As if it was his leap that caused it. The force took him further away and made him land awkwardly. Fear did not even enter his mind as he leapt back to the wreckage. The heat was overcome by his hope that everyone was okay. But no one was okay. Bug legs in flames twitched around him.

Walking through the wreckage trying to find an eye with a soul behind it he kept going as all the odds worsened with each attempt.

Finally he heard a whimper,

“F F Frank F F F”

He turned to see his great uncle almost half the size.

“Dean!” Franklin said as he run to his aid, ran.

“What happened?”

“Dean, I don’t know, its ok you are going to be fine”.

Then he died and Franklin felt bad for lying. The last thing Dean heard was a lie. That was sad. Then he thought he will be ok, just his body wasn’t.

“Sorry” he said to Deans body.

Walking through all were dead. Everyone. Franklin was all alone. Until he heard a crunch of the burned dirt, which franklin wondered what that would be called. Maybe Ash, he thought, then thought no, that’s more wood.

“Freeze!” Someone yelled.

It was so confusing.

“Stay right there!” Another voice said that sounded like the first voice but from a different spot.

Smoke surrounded him and as it dissipated he could see ten men standing there with guns pointed at him. Franklin had only ever see a gun once and that was when a mad scientist got caught and he was making them to kill children. It was on the news and they tied him up on a piece of string at church and he died straight away.

“Just kill him” said a Bug,

“Is it just one?” said another,

a new voice spoke as it walked in circles, “Looks like it”

“We aren’t going through all of this again, just kill him”

“Wait!” Franklin said as he aimed the gun to his head.

“Franklin??” Said a voice,

Franklin turned. It was his dad.

“Dad?”

“This your kid Johnson?” asked a voice,

“This is my boy”

It turns out there was a group called the vegetarians. They set up a distance away on secret. The two laughing men were what his dad called ‘suicide bombers’.

Franklin thought but didn’t question, doesn’t suicide mean killing yourself, not someone else telling you to? Then he thought, it was like someone else’s mind telling your body what to do instead of your own. It was no different than work.

“Your Mum didn’t make it,” said the Dad.

Franklin questioned his dad for the first time with great courage, “But dad, if you organised to kill everyone in the church you must have known I was in there?”

“This is bigger than my relationship with you. This is more important than love”

Franklin would have been very upset but that question never happened. Franklin only thought it and then made up his dads Reply. In fact all of this didn’t happen. Franklin thought it whilst walking, whilst on my third trip to get rice.

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