If a Mantis Could Speak

By: JD Arden

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

“If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.” Imagine that, sharpened, and no larger than your thumb. I do not chase. I wait—head turning twice, sight folding the world into distances you don't see, forelegs cocked not as limbs but as death's trigger. Heat and shadow choose when I move; hunger is a ledger, not a grief. If I could speak, I'd hand you a different grammar of being: precise, impatient, economical.

This is my translation. A first‑person mantis narrates vision, strike, thermals, hunger, and the grim bookkeeping that makes cannibalism a practical choice. Natural history and philosophy sit cheek by jowl with raw, sensory detail—seeing in three dimensions, the muscle click of a strike, the slow tradeoffs of sun and shade. Read this to feel a mind not like yours but intelligible on its own terms. If you want another species’ interior life without human consolation, sit very still. I will not chase. I will wait.