A New Story Most Thursdays
This Edition of Thursday Stories Features Dung Beetles!
Happy New Year, Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.
You can find all of my stories and more at the Marco Etheridge Fiction Website:
This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features Rolling Dung, a philosophical debate between two friends, who happen to be dung beetles. Is it better to roll shit or think about it? This story first appeared in the British magazine Confluence, published in 2023. Now, without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.
Rolling Dung
by Marco Etheridge
The great sphere towered above him, but Gene did not fear the task at hand. He was strong, determined, and single-minded. This was not his first push. Past attempts had taught Gene hard lessons. Obstacles that refused to budge, loose soil that slid beneath his feet, and worst of all, lazy bandits who would rather steal his treasure than mine their own.
The pain of past failures had forged Gene, shaped him into a diligent student. Suffering led him to believe in direct experience. That which worked, he took to heart. That which did not, he cast aside.
Mining the precious orb was a vital first step. He had seen the results of careless work. Lumpy balls were difficult to steer. They bumped and bobbled and veered off course. Worse, they might roll backward, squashing the careless sod doing the pushing. Being run over by a dung ball was humiliating. No, ugly work was bad work.
Gene stuck to his tried-and-true rules. He carved the dung into a globe no more than twice his height. Then he scraped and formed the thing until it was perfectly round. Proper preparation took longer, but it paid dividends on the long push home. The others made fun of him, but Gene didn’t care. It didn’t matter who set out first. Let them chase their lumpy blobs back and forth. He set his mind on the finish line.
The next trick lay in getting the huge ball in motion and then keeping it in motion. Momentum was his ally, stasis the enemy. While those fools zigzagged all over the landscape, Gene took it slow and steady. Head down and heaving, he kept his eyes on the prize. Impress the females. Be the first male back to the burrow with a nice, fat ball of dung. Then share the rewards and reap the benefits.
Gene felt ready. He gave the dung ball one last critical examination. Smooth, round, just the right size. Right, time to get to work. He crouched, braced his head and shoulders against the ball’s smooth surface, dug in his feet, and heaved with all his strength. The great sphere began to move.
When his body reached full extension, Gene ducked and scrambled forward, wedging himself beneath the rolling ball. Another flex, another heave. Keep it going. Find the rhythm.
He navigated while he pushed, sensing the position of the stars above, steering by the shadow of the moon. His brain programmed the route without the need for conscious thought. A little left. Good, now straight on. Rolling, rolling, rolling, keep that dung ball rolling.
Then Gene felt a lurch, a sudden bump. Dammit! The first obstacle. He ducked lower, planted his feet, and lifted. The sphere shuddered but did not roll forward. Gene sensed resistance as if someone was pushing back. A thief! No bastard was going to steal his hard work. Anger fueled Gene’s strength. He gave a mighty shove, and the ball rolled up and over whatever blocked its path.
A lump emerged at his feet, half squished into the loose soil. The lump groaned, and Gene recognized the sound. Oh no, not a thief. Worse. The groaning lump raised its head.
“Gene?”
Gene let go an exasperated sigh and leaned out to steady the dung ball. He grabbed up a loose pebble and used it to chock his treasure in place. Then he crouched over the dusty figure at his feet.
“Rennie, what the hell are you doing?”
Rennie lay on his back, sputtering in the dirt and dust. Gene reached out a strong limb and helped his friend to his feet. He held his compatriot steady and gave him the once-over.
“Anything broken?”
Rennie patted himself and grinned.
“No worse than usual, I guess.”
Gene’s sense of relief gave way to frustration.
“Look, you mind telling me what the hell is going on? I thought you were a rustler. I hate those thieving bastards. Too lazy to do their own work, they gotta swipe someone else’s hard labor. Why, I might have jumped over this ball and beat the crap out of you before I recognized you.”
Rennie stretched himself and groaned again.
“You already beat the crap out of me, Gene.”
“It’s your fault if you don’t have sense enough to stay out of the way. I got work to do, got to protect my goods.”
“Right, as if I would stoop to stealing your precious lump of shit.”
Gene’s features twisted in disbelief.
“What are you calling a lump? Look at this ball. It’s perfect. Round and smooth as the moon.”
“Sorry, Gene. I meant no offense. As big balls of crap go, that thing is a marvel of engineering. It’s just I’ve got better things to do than be impressed by well-sculpted feces.”
It was Gene’s turn to groan, and he did, long and loud.
“Here we go with that old tune. Rennie the dreamer. Pfft! Rennie the hungry is more like it. Too good to roll dung like the rest of us. You know as well as I do that this lump of shit, as you call it, is what keeps us alive. Keeps us fed. Impresses the females. Provides a place to raise our young.”
“Right, of course, the high value of poop, the key to our biological imperative. Listen to yourself, Gene, spouting the party line like a good trooper. But what if this, all of this, is just a dream?”
Gene scoffed.
“If this is a dream, it’s a lousy one. I hate work dreams. Pinch me if I start snoring.”
Rennie raised his head. The creamy glow of the Milky Way bisected the night sky from horizon to horizon. Were they real, these cosmic lamps, or were they no more than navigational beacons for slaves who pushed balls of crap?
He knew he wasn’t like the others. He thought about the nature of things. He asked questions. He doubted, and because he had doubts, Rennie knew that he had a self. Maybe everything else was a dream, but he was real.
Rennie lowered his eyes from the desert night. And there Gene stood, tapping his foot, impatient as always. Gene wasn’t his friend. Rennie didn’t have any friends. But Gene at least tolerated him, which was something.
What did Rennie know to be true, except that he himself was real? And how to explain this to Gene? He decided to give it another try. He gestured with his limbs, trying to form the words in the air between them.
“I don’t mean a sleeping dream, Gene. What if everything around us is an illusion? What if none of this is real?”
Gene nodded, as if thinking over Rennie’s words. Then his limb flashed, and Rennie felt the sting of a hard slap.
“Hey, that hurt!”
Rennie shook his limb and glared at Gene.
“Oh, did you feel that? Sorry, I thought this was all an illusion. Real pain, what a concept. Look, Rennie, just look around you. What do you see? You, me, and a big ball of dung that I should be pushing home instead of wasting my time jawing with you. Criminy, what nonsense! I’ll tell you what’s real. The things I can touch, smell, and eat. The females I can mate with. And yeah, this ball of dung. All of it, real as can be. And you know why? Because I experience it, that’s why.”
“Okay, right, but you can’t explain everything like that. What about the source of the dung, for example? Didn’t you ever wonder where it comes from?”
“What’s to wonder? It falls out of the sky, and you should be damn glad that it does. We’re luckier than most. Our key source of survival falls out of the heavens. We’re blessed.”
“Maybe, but have you ever seen it with your own eyes?”
Gene laughed so hard he doubled over. Rennie rubbed his aching limb and waited for an explanation of what was so funny.
“No, I never, but Chad sure did. You know Chad?”
How could Rennie not know Chad, the biggest and dumbest male? Chad pretended he didn’t see Rennie, then knocked him to the ground and acted surprised.
“That moron. What about him?”
Gene chuckled a bit more.
“Yeah, Chad’s as dumb as a pebble, but he’s a hard worker. Strong as they come, that’s for sure. And he knows for sure where the dung comes from.”
“Yeah, how’s that possible?”
“I’ll tell you how. Chad was out searching one day. A big blob of dung falls right out of the sky, all wet and warm. Buried Chad completely. We didn’t see him for two days. Figured a stork got him, or something. A goner for sure. Anyway, a bunch of us are mining this big pile of shit. All of a sudden, Chad tunnels up out of the middle of that stinking pile. Starts yelling at us to get away from his stash. Covered top to bottom in wet dung and mad as a hornet. You should’ve seen it.”
Now it was Rennie’s turn to scoff.
“I’m glad I wasn’t there. The less I have to do with Chad, the better.”
Underneath Rennie’s scorn lay a deep resentment. It was so bloody unfair! Chad the blockhead experiencing a miracle. Chad the bully gifted by the cosmos. The notion galled Rennie to the core.
Resentment turned to frustration. Rennie kicked at a clod of loose soil. Gene watched in silence. Not a friend, exactly, but a decent companion. Gene might disagree with everything Rennie said, but at least he recognized an idea when he heard one. Unlike Chad, whose only thoughts were dung, breeding, and knocking Rennie down.
The others just did not understand, because they didn’t try to understand. For them, life was nothing more than a series of events. Not even a life, but a simple existence. Gather dung, roll dung home, eat dung, then make more babies whose sole purpose was to grow big enough to roll more dung. There had to be more to it than that. There had to be.
Gene’s voice cut through his thoughts, less gruff than his usual tone.
“Rennie… come back to us, Rennie.”
He swam out of his thoughts and saw Gene smiling at him. And it was a real smile, not Gene’s perpetual smirk.
“Sorry, I guess I drifted off in my head.”
“Right, like that’s something new. Look, Rennie, don’t let it get to you. I know Chad’s an asshole. That’s just who he is. The heavens didn’t bless him. So a pile of dung fell on his head. He’s just lucky, that’s all. Right place, right time. A random occurrence. It doesn’t have to mean something. Lighten up, you big dope.”
Rennie smiled despite himself. Maybe Gene was right, at least for this moment, the two of them standing under a canopy of glimmering stars.
“Yeah, okay, here’s me trying to lighten up. You happy?”
“Always am, buddy.”
Gene raised a limb and pointed to the East.
“The night’s getting old. We better think about moving. I don’t want to be stork fodder.”
Rennie turned to look. Sure enough, a thin glow illuminated the eastern horizon. The coming dawn was both beautiful and dangerous.
“Okay, Rennie, I got a deal for you. What do you say to helping me roll this lovely ball of crap back to the colony? I’ll cut you a share once we get home. Then we find a couple of willing females, share out our treasure, and everyone gets happy.”
“Simple as that?”
“Simple as that, compadre. If it’s all an illusion, at least it’s a pleasant one. C’mon, give yourself a break. Either way, we should be making tracks. Those long-legged bastards will be out hunting for breakfast, and I don’t want to be on the menu.”
Rennie raised his head to the stars. The shimmering jewels were fading with the coming of the new day. One last look, that was all he needed.
Time to move. Gene was right. He didn’t want to find the end of all doubts squirming in the sharp bill of a stork. Better to accept Gene’s generous offer. A chance to belong, to rest his head, even if only for a day.
“Okay, compadre, you’re on. Let’s get to rolling, shall we?”
Gene laughed and waved a limb in mock courtesy.
“After you, I insist.”
Rennie crouched, then braced his head and shoulder against the dung ball. A heartbeat later, Gene slipped in beside him.
“Ready, Rennie? Okay, on three. One, two…”
Fini
You can find Confluence here:
https://www.confluencemagazine.co.uk/
That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:
https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog
And… if you desire more literary fiction, look no further than my collection Power Tools:
Power Tools
There are moments in life when having the right tool makes all the difference.
An elderly woman sets out alone on a journey into a new life. Two soldiers in a bunker share candy and memories. A widower takes on the Supreme Court with a robot. Grief is sung over the cobbled streets of Valletta. Two old heroes question their purpose. These stories tell tales of love lost and found, of the fight for justice, and the glimmering flame of hope that keeps us afloat. Unforgettable characters push back against the crushing weight of the world and shoulder the burdens they carry within. Love, laugh, dance, weep; these are the stories of Power Tools.
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