Insect Angels

Red. A little tint of orange. Black polka dots embellish its thin wings. Little legs that tickle your skin, crawling across your hand as if it was their home. Who would’ve thought such a delicate creature could find solace in human touch, or is it the other way around?

You feel anxious as you lie stomach down in the grass, not knowing what life you may be crushing beneath your weight, the blades hugging your ankles and forearms as old friends. The wind blows gently, but threatens to whip harder, and you feel like you can’t move or this tiny, soft being upon your hands will be crushed in an instant or torn from the protection of your jittery palms into a freefall. You feel powerful having a grip on the scythe that determines its fate, but also frightened that it’ll swing on accident when you’re not looking. A slight of hand is worth lives.

You level the back of your hand to your eyes so its miniscule pupils meet yours. You ask, “What would you give to save your life?” but you cannot sense any trace of understanding on its side. It just keeps crawling around your fingers, scavenging for food, for shelter, for life.

You let it hike towards your index finger, inching its way to the top. It stops at the intersection of your skin and fingernail, the old, hardened flesh jamming its path with mystery. It doesn’t move at all, it just stares at the short mountain that interrupted its travels, not knowing whether to keep moving forward or retrace its steps to safety.

Before it gathers the strength to overcome the nail, you quickly squeeze your index and thumb together, squishing the red and little tint of orange and the black polka dots embellishing its thin wings. You rub your fingers like sprinkling a pinch of salt and watch a stream of its inner juices ooze down your thumb into your palm, gathering along your life line. Its wings are plastic in your hands, pliable and wafer-thin. You feel unwarranted for your recent murder, but you also feel such strength and power within those two fingers. Who knows how much power flows within your whole self?

You wonder how it might taste, licking up the drippage on your palm, savoring the wild blood upon your tongue. Do insects even have blood? Are they filled with colorless, odorless juices that wouldn’t stain like blood? Would killing a tiny bug be considered murder? Or could you get away with the crime because there’s no blood to stain your hands?

How far would you go to get away with murder?

The sun hides behind your house, the sky fading from the blue afternoon into a lazy, golden evening of honey-filled clouds. You push up from the ground with your forearms, careful not to ruin the masterful mess upon your prints, floating up from an indent in the grass like an angel in a fresh pile of snow. What a mark you’ve made on Nature’s creation! The grass bows down to you, O mighty one! You squish the bugs, bend the grass, frighten the winds, and urge the sun to hide! Tell us now, what will you do next?

You feel the energy surging through your veins, the thrill of being a token of Death. But, you begin to feel upset, uncomfortable in your own skin. You are a destroyer of Nature and your surroundings. You look at the hands that are contaminated with the obscurest evidence of your wrongdoings. You have smashed the lives of many: worms, crickets, ants, spiders, and ladybugs. But did they ever think to smash you first?

You feel your body thickening with blood, drowning in the juices squeezed from all of your victims, and you collapse. You collapse to the ground, sobbing, wishing with your whole heart you could bring them back. Bring them all back. Each spider, each worm, each ladybug with the orange-tinted red and the black polka dots and eggshell wings.

Your tears flood the grass and the dirt and the remains of all the insects you robbed of life float sleepily in the river of your emotions. But they aren’t lazy or asleep, they’re fallen and murdered and slaughtered because you were bored and felt the desire to have everything you see under the reign of your thumb or the sole of your shoe. How many souls have you dug out of your soles? You cup the insect-infused river in your hands and sip it all down, using your throat to force the mix of liquids and solids into your stomach.

You’re sorry, you say you’re sorry, you try to reconcile with whoever is above if there is anyone above, but no one ever answers. You’re left kneeling in the vacancy of your destruction, sipping bug blood and dirt, begging for sublime guidance.

But you can’t bring bugs back from the dead.