I Think

I think I posted a while back, upon looking at a midge -- I have no idea what its taxonomic name was -- on the balcony that had suddenly alighted on my arm. My first instinct was "Get away, bug" and my second was "You die, bug."

But something kicked in, bizarrely . . . I thought, of all Man's machines, all the combined machinations of everybody who has ever been alive, no one could match the miracle of this tiny animal. No scientist, no astronomer, no priest, no prophet . . . no one could recreate this tiny, living organism, in a lifetime of lifetimes.

So what if it lives off sewer water. That tiny spark was ALIVE. So I decided not to kill it. As far as I know, it's still out there, just not on my arm.

But I can pretty much assure myself that it didn't hold back a lifetime of memories, of bombing Nazis and smoking too much and scheming and living, that that tiny spark holds nothing to the bonfire that my father has . . . I hate to be anthrocentric but when he's gone, a whole world will die.

And I think of these little dried things that were in a packet until not too long ago, that are now green, and growing, desperate for a chance at life . . . what were they before? They were seeds. They didn't know any different and you know, you and I didn't know any different when we weren't born. But now that we do know different, we should kind of like, pay attention. 'Cause we're gonna have a test.

And I'll always remember the bug that I didn't kill.