Anonymous

She!

Chapter 1

Perhaps you'd think that I was unbelievably unimaginative. I prefer to think of it as fully exploring my particular condition before moving on to another. Remember also that once I have become, I can return to my earlier forms quickly and easily. Thus the variety has always been there. Just not in this new form.

I don't know how old I am, if that's important to you. Old. I know that. But time had little meaning to me until fairly recently. Many of my days were spent only in responding to circadian cycles and not to the dials of a clock.

You might say I'm a single entity evolutionary being.

If you don't know what circadian cycles are, you can join my understanding. I didn't know the shortening and lengthening days and nights had a name until fairly recently.

What are my earliest memories? What was I? I can't tell you. First, I'm not sure my being at the time has a name and, if it does, I don't know it. After all, when you are a limited being, it is very difficult to know yourself. There are no mirrors for the tiniest of creatures and, if you see another like you, there is no way you could recognize the reflection except by the biological attraction or revulsion.

Suffice it to say that I spent my time eating and growing. If others like I was then have a reproductive cycle, I never participated in it. I doubt that it was a particularly noteworthy sexual act.

I do have memories of crawling on multiple spindly legs. I have found that size somewhat useful since and have re-used it. Here, then, a bit of explanation is useful.

When I revert to earlier forms, my mind remains intact. Since I have lived for a period in one body before moving on to something else, I know what is necessary to live as that being. However, since I carry a memory of other shapes and sizes and experiences with me, it is impossible to totally return to the feeling of being that earlier creature.

Thus, I know that I was once a spider, because I know what a spider is now. But at the time I was one with all my being, I knew nothing but eat or be eaten.

Certainly, sex as an arachnid was not the main selling point of the form. I had two opportunities to partake in reproductive activities and both times narrowly escaped being my offspring's first meal or my sexual partner's next.