text: It’s the start of summer and a baby yellow jacket named Higg is born amongst many siblings. He looks up to his mother, the queen, and the many other workers in the hive for food and support. High continues to grow big and strong and the nest, originally only occupied by the queen, now has thousands of members. But the queen has grown tired and weak. In August, just a few months after the baby yellow jacket was born, He loses his mother and queen. Higg does not know why he was born or what he is supposed to do with his life. He has started wondering “what is my purpose?”. And with that he decides to leave the nest and find his purpose . The first creature the yellow jacket comes across is a honey bee, this bee looks just like him and is flying out of a beautiful red flower, Higg stops and asks the honey bee, what is that you’re doing? The bee lights up with pride and tells the yellow jacket that she is “saving the world one flower at a time”. The bee explains that it pollinates different plants and flowers helping them to spread and grow. “Without bees there is no food and no planet”. Higg was overjoyed to hear that a creature so similar to him had such an important role in the world, he asked if he could follow the honey bee and try to learn to pollinate plants too. The honey bee tried and tried to show Higg how to pollinate but o matter how hard he tried he was not able to do what honey bees do and with a disappointed heart he left the honey bee and flew on to continue his search for his purpose. Soon after he was feeling thirsty and decided to land by a nearby river for a drink. After a refreshing sip he noticed a big dam built further down the river. Higg flew over to see a beaver chewing branches and building this dam higher and higher. The yellow jacket asks the beaver why he is doing that and the beaver tells him that it is “creating an ecosystem”. The beaver says that the trees he cuts down bring sunlight to the Forrest and the pond he creates with his dam improve water quality, helping flourish and even prevent Forrest fires. Higg can’t believe that one creature can do all of these amazing things, he asks the beaver to show him how to make a dam but the yellow jacket cannot even break one tree branch down. He sadly realizes that this cannot be the purpose of a yellow jacket and flies away to keep looking. Higg gets hungry and lands on the ground in a nearby dirt patch to scoop up some smaller insects for lunch. He comes across an earthworm plowing across the soil. The yellow jacket asks the earthworm what it is doing and the earthworm replies that it is making the earth new. The earthworm says that it can make soil much more fertile by recycling dead plants and creatures and freeing up space in the dirt it moves through. Higg tries to eat the dead plants and organisms but cannot create fresh soil, he tries to move through it to create space for water to flow through he can’t burrow through any of the dirt. He becomes fed up with this and flys away losing hope that he’ll ever find his true purpose. The yellow jacket decides to fly further then he has ever been and finds himself in a strange place outside of the woods with streets and houses, he looks for something familiar and finds a grassy backyard to rest. There Higg sees a dog playing with a human, when the dog brings back a stick the human pets it with their hand. Higg approaches the dog and asks what it is doing. The dog tells him that it’s man’a best friend and it’s purpose is to provide support and love to humans. Higg thinks that this is very interesting, no other animal that it has met has done anything like this. Higg decides to give it a try and flys next to the humans hand like the dog did the human swats at him. Higg barley dodges the hand and is terrified that he was almost hit by the human . It flies upward towards the humans face and the human swats again, this time getting even closer but Higg moves out of the way just in time. The human begins to angrily shout “ stupid yellow jacket, these things are useless, they serve no purpose”. At this point Higg realizes, that maybe after all his searching yellow jackets do not have a purpose after all, he feels an angry shaking twitch in his stinger. He points it directly at the human and flys full speed into it. Higg stings the human and it yells at the top of its lungs OW and with power and speed smacks Higgs against its arm. Higg falls to the ground and glances up at the clouds one more time before a large boot smashes down.