417. Dying an Orange Death (Flash Fiction) Inventing New Rules to Hollywood Formula Storytelling (Poem / Song)

Song: Dying an Orange Death

I am dying an orange death,
Crawling for my one last breath,

Cupped by a splotch of petals--
Held by a web of nettles--

Of novel land's Absurd,
An Alien Absurd.


I am dying an orange death,
Parameter-izing a purple sketch

Within a leaf-like letter
Trekked for a semblanced-shelter--

How-could I be so lured?
Easily tripped, allured?


What's the point?--I'm
Dying an orange death.
Dislocate to
An Alien of lands.

What is the chance
To hold foot again?
What is the chance
Of rebirth again?

Role the dice
And Life's Life
Is slim--
For I'm dying
An orange death.


STORY:
Dying an Orange Death is a flash fiction story about Absurdity. I feel that Hollywood is very limited in it's storyline gimicks and that there are certain protocols not explored. For example, some existentialist koan type of material that I happened to experience in my own life. A few days ago I rescued an eccentric-looking caterpillar from being smooshed by a car while it was rapidly crawling across the parking lot (with no shrub or tree refuge in site of its course of action). Since I had never seen such a caterpillar before, I picked it up (along with a leaf) and took a moment from my self-absorbed life to take a few pictures of it within the shade of my car. Before I even had the chance to return this little fiesty bugger to a nearby bush, that creature started to frantically crawl around my arm and at the right place and right time, it fell within the crevice abyss within my parking break, in between the two front seats. Then I spent about five minutes trying to find the thing within the dark caves of my own metal motile contraption. I abandoned my efforts in helplessness. I was so aggravated by my efforts on trying to save this little creature, and now it's going to shrivel in my own hands, within the jungle of my own car! Soon enough, I had to dart into the Kinkos, work for a couple of hours, and then hit the road to Riverside, to which I came in to my parents' house late that night--too delirious to worry about a caterpillar. The next morning, as I proceeded to clean out the clutter from the vaulted interiors, I happened to elatedly stumble upon this frazzled little caterpillar--now worn out and beaten up, losing some of its hairs and feelers--curled up all shy and potentially tired from marching up to a peak of obviousness: the tip of the white lid of an old Starbucks coffee cup. At first I thought the creature was dead because it was very still. Then I poked it with a finger and it started to move! I then told my father about the trek of this absurd little caterpillar and he suggested that I transplant this thing into his California wildflower garden. I ended up placing this caterpillar in the cup of a barely opening poppy flower (late in bloom this year), and my father came to see the now scraggly, transplanted caterpillar, as he commented how it will be "dying an orange death." I exclaimed, "Gee, how poetic! I will write that down." He noted it was a bit repetitious--dying and death, and I said *whatever.* My father and I returned to the supposedly caterpillar-filled poppy flower a few minutes later (after I wrote down a few words), and then the caterpillar mysteriously vanished. We thought all the possibilities. Maybe it crawled out and started to explore the jungle of flower/weed fields underneath the poppy. Maybe it was grabbed by a hungry bird. Nevertheless, it was gone, and though all of it was quite dramatic, it was very anticlimactic in the end. I walked away from this little absurd adventure, asking "What's the point?" (I just told this story to Jules and he liked it a lot! I told him that Hollywood has a formula. I hate being stuck in a formula, and I wanted to invent new rules to the game. So I did. I created a story full of drama, but you leave feeling unsatisfied--like you work so hard to do something good, and in the end there is no resolution and no satisfaction. There was no point after all. The message is so stoic, so existentialist--I love it!

CAPTION:
"Dying an Orange Death" is a Flash Fiction Story (Memoir) and Poem about How I tried to rescue a caterpillar from its death in a parking lot, and in end, it self-induced its own death under my care... potentially within my car... and within the wildflower garden of my father. The goal of the story is to leave one wondering, "I try so hard to do something so magnificently minutely good... and in the end... what's the point? Nothing comes of it." I think this is the first Koan I ever experienced in my life!

CAPTION:
Dying an Orange Death. Flash Fiction Story (Koan) about saving a mysterious caterpillar from a certain parking lot death, leading to two encounters of uncertain death... and an unresolved future.