The Necessary End of Beetles—Andrew Senior

It stood in the middle of the windowsill, a fine specimen, robust and glossy black. Encased in  an enviably hard shell, it was as still as she was, curled up in the chair. She thought to touch it, or maybe even to hold out her hand and let it climb on—the minute touch of its legs causing a reassuring shiver to pass through her. But she let it be, concerned not to send it scuttling away, grateful for the companionship. 

On the window condensation ran in teary rivulets down through the grey light, pooling where the glass met the wooden frame. It was early but he was already up. He appeared in the doorway. 

‘Hey!’

‘Hi.’

‘How are you this morning?’ 

It came immediately, the sinking sensation.  

‘OK.’

‘I thought we could go out. It’s cold at the mo but it’s going to be another warm one.’

The sensation dissolved into another internal sigh, reaching every part of her.  

‘Maybe.’

Her glance at the empty chair opposite was an instinctive, silent invitation but when she turned her head it was only in time to see him leaving the room. 

‘I’ll make us a picnic,’ he called as he went down the hallway. 

But it was no good. She didn’t come. In his frustration he threw the picnic in the bin outside and walked by himself through the woods, mulling over his frustrations. They were on holiday in this beautiful place, time away for her after everything that had happened, but she wouldn’t even leave the house. If she’d just do the things he suggested she would feel so much better, he knew it. He wanted to get her back on her feet. Up and running again, like it was before. As it was, his every effort was rebuffed. 

With the sun in his eyes, he kept his head down. Intermittently on the track he noticed beetles laid on their backs, slowly, almost paralytically, moving their forelegs and hindlegs in a cycling motion, their ugly mechanical undersides exposed, shining violet in the bright light. He began to push them with the tip of his finger, setting each one the right way up.

‘The birds will only get you if you stay here,’ he kept muttering to himself, or words to that effect. 

But each insect only tottered clumsily, lethargically rolled over and continued with their monotonous leg movement.

Eventually he lost patience and, at the next beetle he came to, an overwhelming sense of abandonment took hold. He lifted his foot and stamped down. Soon, in his wake, the path was strewn with little disjointed piles of shimmering antennas and thoraxes and abdomens and legs and wings. 

It was nearly midday and his despondency and hunger were making him tired. At the side of the path there was an area of soft, mossy grass, partially shaded where the branches broke up the sunlight. It was the sort of setting he’d had in mind for their picnic. But maybe I’m better off on my own, he thought, without her melancholy spoiling everything. He lay down on the cushion-like ground and drifted into an uneasy sleep. 

When he awoke, he could still feel the sun. But something was very different. Inhumanely different. It was no longer soft where he lay. The surface beneath him was hard and stony. And he felt weary. Not just a loss of energy but a deep, deep weariness, like all his senses were depleted and expiring. He found that, with what little strength he had, his mind could only direct his body to do one thing. The effort of slowly, slowly moving his legs. He opened his eyes. They shifted above him, round and round through the air. In a cycling motion. All six of them. Forelegs and hindlegs. Hard and black. 

He lay on his back on the track, dazed and utterly helpless, and in the trees the birds darted impatiently. 

She’d heard the back door slam. Why couldn’t he understand that simply being upbeat wouldn’t make things better?

The sun was now streaming into the room, its warmth magnified by the windowpane, the condensation all evaporated, but when she returned with a glass of water, she saw that the beetle had fallen onto its back. With great care, she nudged it into an upright position. But the beetle only rolled itself over again. She reached out but then stopped, a vague recollection of something learnt at school, or maybe in a documentary. She realised what was happening. Very gently she slid the insect to the edge of the windowsill and on to her hand. She felt the smoothness of the shell on her skin. She blew softly, just enough for the insect to feel her presence. Its antenna twitched once. Her loneliness grew dim. 

When the legs finally stopped moving, she carefully got up out of the chair and, with a new resolve, went through the empty house to the kitchen, propped open the back door and sat down on the step, wondering when he would return. She lifted the beetle closer to her face and studied it where it lay completely still on her palm, cradling it as though it was almost a part of her. 

As she sat, a small bird landed on a branch nearby. It gazed directly at her. Protectively she closed her fingers but the creature appeared soporific in the warmth of the afternoon, and she had the impression that it was already well fed and replete.

She looked to where the track emerged from the woods. There was no sign of him. Out there amongst the trees a loneliness hung in the air. She sensed it. But it no longer touched her. She held the beetle. The bird dozed on the branch. The sun warmed her skin, and inside she felt the hard shell of her heart giving way, her grief at last beginning to emerge.

photo by fotoblend (via pixabay)