There is a mayfly
whose entire life in the light
lasts five minutes.
No prologue.
No second act.
Just the urgent bloom
of a single, impossible moment.
She waits a year
beneath stone and silence,
a ghost in a riverbed,
learning the patience
of darkness.
Then
she rises—
not slowly,
not cautiously—
but as if time itself
has finally opened its fist.
No hunger.
No sleep.
No idle wandering.
She climbs the sky,
spins a marriage
of wing and wind,
releases her eggs
like scattered prayers—
and falls.
That’s all.
She dies
as the sun
tilts its face.
No regret.
No distraction.
No unfinished chapters.
Five minutes,
and a full life.
You—
with five thousand weeks—
what will you do
before the river
takes you back?
