“Life does not consist in seeking and consuming the fuel furnished by breathing and nourishment, but, if we may so speak, in consummating terrestrial and celestial nourishments.” — Emmanuel Levinas

I was hovering over a flower-filled field. A craving grew in my stinger. I felt myself pulled toward them, a wagon pulled by a team of powerful horses. My stinger drove forward with lust, a potent, erotic force.

I could feel the wind curving over my bulbous body. A whooshing sound in my ears. My little feet flapped rapidly, playing cards in the wind’s bicycle spokes. My wings whirred, hurling thunder across the field.

My stinger found the one I wanted before I did, a friend pointing out something suited to my tastes. Everything slowed, and my wings became slow jazz saxophones. My little feet tapped the air as if were a high-hat cymbal. The wind became a stream; my body, a bubble of love.

I danced around my chosen one, admiring it from all angles, embracing it with all but the essential sensation of the embrace. Its sleek, long, lively stem rising from its secret source in the center of the soil. Its petals still moist with the warm, late-morning dew. Its low, slow, thick moving tang breathes through the atmosphere, enveloping me like smoke envelops the smoker.

My stinger eased its grip on me. I was no longer pulled by anything, but rather, attracted. I didn’t need to be pulled. I went forward willingly. I anticipated its touch, a thousand kisses upon my tip, the slow, smooth descent into a bath of kisses — active kisses, not the sensation of puckered lips, but the suction of a kiss, the suction of the desire to bring in, the suction kiss of the welcome back for the first time, the original arriving and return, the suction of the soul’s always first embrace of the mate, the embrace of its lips around my tip.

The accomplishment of enjoyment.

I later found myself hovering under a clear blue sky, its peacefulness, its ataraxy, disturbed only by the overpowering heat of the noontide sun. The sun’s arms spread from horizon to horizon, embracing everything I could see. The trees turned toward it with all their might. My delicate flowers strove to burst forth from the earth and complete the aspirations of their seeds. The leaves of grass twisted and turned with valor, trying to escape the soil. The lakes transformed into something lighter in order to defy the warden of gravity and return to their home. I heard the explosion of a far-off volcano, the earth fighting against its own lowly history, matter fighting matter, and making the leap into the unknown above.

I pushed my wings against the weight of the world and rose up with it. The winds carried me as they spread the news from horizon to horizon. To me, they were a ladder whose rungs were alternating conveyor belts. I used their momentum to climb higher and higher. My stinger tried to pull me down, as if I had a balloon of lead tied around my waist, but my will would not be deterred. I pushed upward like a scuba diver coming quickly to the surface. My wings thrust the sky out of my way. They began pumping at just the right rhythm, and my every ounce of energy was met by no resistance. The air began to tighten around me, but I moved through it by what seemed the power of peristalsis; it gripped me and propelled me upward into the heavens, sweeping me into the arms of the sun.

The feeling of being born.

Later, I had Continental Philosophy with Heather Keith, so I came back and did my homework.