What are *you* lookin' at?
On a trail walk, I stopped to look at a wheat-colored praying mantis resting in my path. I might have stepped on it had I not been looking down at the pavement while pacing, my thoughts grinding away. I squatted to get a better look at it, then blew on it gently. When it felt my breath, it shivered like a blade of grass in the wind. This camouflage must work well when ensconced in vegetation, but in the middle of bare asphalt–not so much, dude.
Inquiring minds want to know what tasty stuff you might have stored in *your* butt.
On another constitutional, a flurry of tiny but intense activity down below caught my eye, so once again I stopped and crouched to check out the happenings. It was a yellow jacket working its pincers quite hard to rip the abdomen off a dead honey bee. I watched it hack away until it succeeded. And then I watched it bury its face into the bee’s severed ass as if it were a feed bag, excitedly gobbling up the crumbly orange pollen harvested inside.
I am cannibal. Fear me.
Since I couldn’t sleep, I was out again. At the very least I could be soothed by the freshness of night. And there, in the dark at my feet, was yet another spectacle: a pile of snails in the middle of the sidewalk. I wondered, hey, is this how snails screw? In a big love heap? I shone my pocket flashlight to behold this event. This was when I noticed there was a broken snail in the middle of the pile and they were all eating it. Well. That went from porno to horror real quick.
So, next time you step on tiny, negligible life, take a moment to reflect who are you are crushing.
Elena Mauli Shapiro 