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[HARD CONTACT] Chapter 6: Insects and mortality
|| Republic Commando: Hard Contact || 2004 || Book series || Military, Sci-Fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||
Reading this scene for the first time was heartbreaking to begin with, and arriving to the second time, it’s still the same gut-wrenching feeling. Darman has this child-like wonder toward nature and its inhabitants when he is not under pressure, not under attack. I could just imagine before my eyes, that he watches these little glowing insects with stars in his eyes and then… they just die. Just like that.
He cradled his rifle in his arms, leaned back on his pack, and watched the insects dancing on the sunlit water.
They were hypnotically beautiful. Their wings were electric blues and bright vermilion and they wove a figure-eight. Then, one by one, they dropped down and floated on the surface, drifting with the current, still wonderfully vivid, but now apparently dead. Darman reacted. Airborne toxin. He shut his eyes tight, puffed out the air in his lungs, and snapped his helmet back into place, drawing breath again only when the seal was secure and his filtration mask could take over. But there was no data on his visor to indicate a contaminant. The air was still clean.
Reading this scene for the first time was heartbreaking to begin with, and arriving to the second time, it’s still the same gut-wrenching feeling. Darman has this child-like wonder toward nature and its inhabitants when he is not under pressure, not under attack. I could just imagine before my eyes, that he watches these little glowing insects with stars in his eyes and then… they just die. Just like that.
And THEN Darman’s first thought that this area is under attack. He can’t catch a break, he can’t stop. He is always a soldier, always looking for threat. While what is really happening is that Darman has no idea about the concept that creatures can just simply grow old and die. In Darman’s world, people either survive or get killed. Bugs have really short lifespan and Darman just witnessed death that was arrived in the natural way.
I really liked how the bug’s sudden death bothered Darman enough that he even storaged the bug for later examination:
(what do you think about this quote format? Is it easier to read the post?)He leaned out and scooped up a couple of the insects caught in an eddy. One kicked a leg a few times and then was still. When he looked up, there were none left flying. It seemed sad. What bothered him more was that it seemed inexplicable.Curious, he fumbled for an empty ration cube container and dropped the insects into it to consider them later.