female Mantis

I’m sat upon a leaf, nice and concealed. I can see particularly well, considering my eyes are well adjusted to this light, I should be able to feed well tonight, being that it’s summer and there are moths galore.

And so I do, one after the other. Need not even to feed once more tonight. And I stand by idle, sleeping but not simultaneously. Like how humans have micro-sleeps, where they just conk out for a few seconds; still aware but at the same time, just sitting there, immobilized. 

I “wake” the following day, it had been raining whilst I was idle and I decided to move lower on the plant; less water to have to trudge through.

Then a male of my kind approaches me, a typical specimen but nonetheless, they shall do, haven’t seen a male of my kind for nigh on almost a couple of weeks, and even then they were juveniles.

I feel there’s a time and place when it comes to reproducing, so to speak. As crude as it may sound, I’m picky yet still I couldn’t afford to be sometimes, and this was one of those times, unfortunately for him..

Shouldn’t feel guilty about what I do though, it’s only natural. I find a mate, perform deed. No the need for details.

Well, maybe one small detail, and that once said deed is over, I eat him, either partially or fully, I don’t care, as long as I get the nutrients I require.

This is natural for me, after all, I’m a female praying mantis.

I just can’t help it, my body and psyche just “forces” me to. You’d think I’d be disgusted, being a cannibal, but no, I’m honestly not. Continuing the species is important after all, and we aren’t as prominent as them…

I begin to ponder about them. They’ve made it somewhat difficult for us to move about and thrive for that matter. One day they just… took a rock and used it to make things, cut things, fish for things, hunt for things, and it’s grown steadily over such a long time, or so I’ve been told.

They rule this world, and have essentially made it into their own as a whole. They cut up swathes of land and put a road here, a factory there, a town over yonder. An actual society, where primal hunting such as this simply isn’t, I couldn’t possibly imagine a world without having to be constantly on the lookout (especially with these compound eyes), carving up your own meals to eat and actually catching said meal, But overall, what these humans create, generally are places we can’t naturally thrive, unless I can find a vantage point near a street lamp that is, These moths treat any kind of light, artificial or not, like humans would treat bolivian marching powder, aside from the humans snorting it, rather than just flying around because… light is warm, I suppose? 

I end my thought as the last of said mate’s body was within me, his only mark in nature now being his blood, splatter across the leaf we occupied. And in future, the other mark will be the nymphs that I will eventually have to develop and then expel them from me. Oh dear god what a pain that will be…

In any case, all I can do now is make sure I am well fed, conceal myself and eggs well, and hope heartily that a frog doesn’t decide to make me his lunchtime snack. Hopefully if that were to be the case, some bird would swipe it before it reaches me