Silkless Pupa 2

He has become darker now, I believe. But is still sensitive to the world around him. A draught causes him to swish his tail. It is a little disquieting. I had tried to convince myself that a pupa was barely alive - and yet clearly it is still a sentient being.


This flick of a tail has caused me to think again about what is life and what exactly is living. I think again of comas, varying degrees of consciousness and the vegetative state. Inside, this pupa is disorganised, its cell walls broken down into a soup of innards - and yet it still reacts. There must be, therefore, something that is left intact: a brain, perhaps, and some sort of nervous system. This twitch of the tail must be some base reaction...and I think of another time, another twitch, and hope that too was some primal reaction without consciousness.