ORIGINS: We love pairing similar things, even if you have to squint a little bit to see the similarity. After the swan and the dolphin, we thought that a hummingbird and an anteater would be a nice match.
*Anteaters have pandas hidden in two of their legs, but we couldn’t find anything hidden in our little hummingbird. So, we found a plant (Crotalaria Cunninghamii), whose flowers look like hummingbirds.
Hummingbird: Can you hear it? Isn’t it pretty? That’s how a heart is supposed to beat when you are living your dream. Fast. Hungering for more. More. More. Drinking all the flowers isn’t enough. You have to devour all the forest, like an ant would do. Only then will you be able to drink the ocean. Every single drop touched by a whalesong. Until there are no songs left, and your dream is finally complete.
Anteater: I don’t have your heart. Dreams are not something I am familiar with. But I know hunger, just like you. I want more too. And since you seem to know where all the ants are, I will follow you.
Hummingbird: There was a time when someone wished me sweet dreams every night. I didn’t know that she was a hummingbird, with a sharp beak. I didn’t know that all those sweets would give me cavities. Darkness. Where all my dreams would eventually turn into nightmares. I didn’t know, that one day, I would become a hummingbird too. That I would let someone else dream. That I would riddle his teeth full of holes, where nightmares would lurk.
Anteater: Don’t you worry. I have the key to the chains of the moon. I will show you that some nightmares can be driven away for good. I will free the moon for you. I will eat all the dark ants that make it new. And you will see a full moon, whose dreams still shine bright. That’s the last thing you will see. The one that will stay with you. Long after we let the moon drift away.
Hummingbird: You shouldn’t let anyone else have a say. If you want to walk on the moon, you shouldn’t let the fact that someone else’s footsteps are already there discourage you. If you don’t care for ants. If you think that your place is on the moon, because a part of you is black and white too, that’s where you should go. No matter what anyone else says, or what they see in the moon.
Anteater: That’s very nice of you to say. But I like ants well enough. I like fishing, but the stars mean nothing to me, and that is the only thing I would be able to catch if I went to the moon. If it’s all the same to you, I will stay right where I am. I still haven’t caught a mermaid, but I know that one day I will. And she will teach me how to sing. How to destroy, without lifting a single finger, just by using my words.
Hummingbird: You are one to talk! You stepped out of the ocean too. Just because I went farther than you, that doesn’t give you the right to accuse me of using others as my stepping stones. You found the ocean lacking too. Just because your tongue keeps you tethered to the ground, whereas I am free to fly wherever I want, that doesn’t give you the right to try to make me feel bad.
Anteater: I’m not trying to make you feel bad! I only asked you a question. The sky looks empty to me. Nothing can live there. Not permanently. And I only wanted to know if it was worth it. If flying, without ever being able to hold anything in your wings, was worth it. Because to me, your wings look as empty as the sky. And that looks like taking a step backwards.