The beetle who named everything

Dot was a beetle. A very small beetle. A very organised beetle. A beetle with a catalogue.

The catalogue was: Twelve pages long. Written in Dot's smallest handwriting. Organised alphabetically. Cross-referenced by size, colour, and whether or not the thing in question had ever surprised anyone.

So far the catalogue contained: The smell of rain on dry bark. (Listed under R. Cross-referenced under S for Surprising, first time.) The exact colour of a mushroom at four in the morning. (Listed under M. Cross-referenced under C for Colours That Don't Have Names Yet.) The feeling of walking on moss that is wetter than expected. (Listed under F. Cross-referenced under W for Wet and also U for Unpleasant But Interesting.)

Dot was very good at this. Dot had been doing it since the age of three which in beetle years was essentially forever.

Then came the morning of the first frost.

Dot was in the catalogue room which was under the third oak root on the left when you were facing north which Dot always was because south made Dot feel unorganised.

The sound arrived.

It was not a loud sound. It was not a quiet sound exactly either. It was somewhere in between in a place that sounds don't usually live.

It was: High. And low. At the same time. Which should not have been possible and was anyway. It came from everywhere. It came from nowhere. It lasted exactly long enough to make you certain you'd heard it and not long enough to make you certain what it was.

Dot put down the pen. This was significant. Dot never put down the pen.

Dot went outside. The frost was on everything — the bark and the moss and the long grass and the spider's web that had been there since August and was now a small frozen cathedral catching the light in a way that had no name either but that was a different problem for a different morning.

Dot listened.

The sound came again.

Dot's antennae went: Forward. Then sideways. Then forward again. This was what antennae do when the brain behind them has absolutely no category for what is happening.

Dot took out the catalogue. Page one: Nothing that matched. Page six: Nothing that matched. Page twelve: Nothing.

Dot turned to page thirteen. Page thirteen was blank. Dot had never needed page thirteen.

Dot listened again. The sound happened a third time and then like all things that matter most — stopped.

Dot stood in the frost with the open catalogue and the blank page and the place in the air where the sound had been.

The problem was: How do you write down a sound? Dot had written down smells. (You describe what they remind you of.) Dot had written down colours. (You describe the feeling they make in your chest.) Dot had written down feelings. (You describe where in your body they live.) But this sound — this sound lived everywhere and nowhere and reminded Dot of nothing because there was nothing to compare it to and it made a feeling that had no address in any part of Dot's body that Dot had catalogued so far.

Dot sat down. On the frost. This was unusual. Dot did not sit on things that were wet or cold or likely to leave a mark on the catalogue.

Dot sat on the frost anyway.

After a long time Dot picked up the pen. Turned to page thirteen. And wrote:

The Sound. Heard once. First frost. Year unknown. Comes from: everywhere. Sounds like: nothing else. Feels like: finding out the world is larger than the catalogue. Category: Unnamed. Cross-referenced under W — for Worth Coming Back For.

Dot closed the catalogue. The frost melted slowly around the edges of Dot's six small feet. The oak tree creaked. The spider's web caught the light.

Somewhere in the forest the world was full of things with no names yet.

Dot had never been so happy about anything in a very organised life.