The centipedes that forgot

By Phani Vasantarao

It is said that when the humans first arrived on our planet, we were centipedes that crawled about and ate our prey raw. We had twelve long fingers that sprung from either end of our bodies, which used to hunt prey, fight, and help each other. It took the humans a while to realise that we were intelligent. They even killed and ate some of us.

We had no civilization or weapons to speak of, so we were easily overwhelmed by the humans. They became our rulers, and our tormenters. They were disgusted by us because we reminded them of a lower form of life on their planet. But we centipedes, you see, had a curious trait - our offspring would always resemble those that surrounded the parent during pregnancy.

We had no gender (we were haploid), and no patriarchy. The confused humans could not tell when we were pregnant, kept us working around them throughout. So the next generation was born looking like an odd mix of human and centipede. This generation struggled to walk on their hindfingers, made gurgling noises instead of speech, and could barely bring their forefingers together to resemble human hands. The ever curious humans put this generation in labs and began to study them.

With each generation though, we changed to become more like the humans. Our legs became obsolete, and our fingers got bunched together to more closely resemble human limbs. Our heads began to protrude from our bodies, and our gurgles became intelligible. We even learnt the human ways - we dressed like them, cooked our food, pretended we had genders, and imposed a fake patriarchy on ourselves. We learnt their political systems, and adapted their technology. We left our underground homes and began to live in cities.

But it was never enough for the humans. Though they treated us fairly to our faces, behind our backs (which we had now), they laughed at us. Our eyes were too beady, our limbs too bony, our flesh still had rings, and we could never grow noses. Most importantly, we still had no genitalia. Why this was so important to the humans, we could never understand.

Eventually, the humans decided to leave. Whether they ran out of resources to mine, or whether they realised enslaving another species was sinful, or whether they were simply bored, they did not tell us before leaving. They simply left.

And then, the strangest thing of all happened. You see, we kept changing to become even more human with each generation. We grew noses, soft flesh and hair like the humans. Gurgles disappeared from our speech. Our bony fingers became fully formed human limbs. And eventually we developed that most cherished human trait - gender. It was as if the centipedes had never existed.

Once the humans left, we had wished to become more like our former selves, the way we were before the humans arrived. We wished to go back to crawling about and eating our prey raw, living without gender or patriarchy or industry or technology. But our offspring, you must remember, only resembled those that surrounded the pregnant parent. And those that surrounded the parents were more human than centipede.

So there was no way out. We would keep becoming more human with time. We could not change back to ourselves, because we had completely forgotten who we used to be.

By Phani Vasantarao