I saw a bug earlier.

I saw a bug earlier.

He was in the bathroom, trying to get out. At first, I was just watching him because he looked pretty wild. He was black, about the size of a dime, with a red ring around his neck, red pincers, and antennas moving around on his head like he was picking up transmissions from some tiny invisible radio station.

He looked intimidating. Cool, but intimidating. I thought, Hmm. Red pincers. Better let this little man conduct his business. Then I noticed what he was doing. He went over to the wall and started tracing the edge of it. Slowly, deliberately, he followed the wall all the way around the bathroom until he reached the door. Then he came off the doorway and stepped onto the carpet.

I thought, Whoa. This guy knows something. Then I thought, How did he even get in here? He probably came through the patio door while it was open. One minute, he was out on the patio beneath the giant blue majesty of the sky, and the next minute he had wandered into a bathroom a room inside another room, inside an apartment, inside some enormous human construction he could not possibly comprehend.

What an immense situation for a bug. 

And somehow, he had to get back. So he found the wall. He followed the wall. He found the doorway. Then he moved into the hallway and out toward the living room. I don’t know how big this bug’s brain was. A grain of sand? Half a grain of sand? Maybe, but the whole size of him was a dime. Some tiny electric pearl with a few sparks flying around inside it?

Maybe he could see the brightness coming through the patio door. Maybe he could feel the outdoor air slipping across the floor. Maybe his antennas were pulling information out of the atmosphere, catching little threads of light and wind.

This way. Keep going. The open world is still out there. And he kept going. Through the bathroom. Across the threshold. Down the hallway. Into the living room. Everything around him must have been enormous. The walls stretched upward forever. The carpet rolled beneath him like a beige wilderness. Shadows shifted. Light poured across the floor in glowing rectangles.

Then, bam. He made it onto the patio. I was standing there thinking, This is incredible. The complexity. The mind blowing amazement. The determination. Hats off, to you, my man . But then the cats saw him. One of the cats tried to eat him, and the bug fought back. There was a brief collision between two completely different universes. fur, claws, pincers. The cat put him in its mouth and immediately seemed to reconsider the entire arrangement. Maybe he tasted terrible. Maybe the red pincers delivered a message. Whatever happened, the cat let him go. Then the bug opened his back. I guess it was his carapace, or his wing covers, or whatever that hard shell was. It split apart, and these delicate wings unfolded from inside him.

Then he flew off and I thought, "Catch you later". But then instantly thought this was a terrible idea seeing how he was like had a red stripe and pincers.