The arrival of the monsoon has liberated all kinds of bugs and beetles from their jungle lairs. They leave the pine trees at twilight like squadrons of B52 bombers, their wing beat thrums in the silence of evening like helicopters and the sound they make when they hit the tin roof is like that of a small rhinoceros!
If you sit outside at night, they will dive bomb you as they hurl themselves towards the lighted window.
The worst thing is when they get inside and you have to deal with them woman to bug.
The other night, a storm and a power cut and lightening flickering on the distant Himalayas and a bug somewhere in the room. My hair stood on end and my nerve ends tingled in anticipation of the attack but soon I realised the bug was between the curtain and the screen on the window. No need to deal with it then, I relied on the beetles instinct to flap with insane futility at the window all night. I reckoned the pull of the light would keep him out of my range and yanked the covers over my head prepared to ignore him until I fell asleep or he gave up.
The whirr thud whirr continued as the lightening flickered on and off in the distance like lights of a distant house showing the way to a visitor.
Stupid bug, even if I was prepared to release it so that its mad flight could continue he would never reach the light that was his hearts desire. He would get trapped by some other light on the way, dazzled by its nearness and forget all about the lightening he yearns for now.
Whirr thud whirr, he danced to the beat of the lightening flashes. It was a dance of desire and futility and pretty much the story of a human life, I reckoned somewhat softening towards the bug. We are all in the darkness to various degrees, fumbling or flying towards the light.
Yeah baby, we do exactly that. We flit from light to light dazzled, bedazzled, drunk with desire and distracted at every point along the way and yet there in the distance is the miraculous light, the mysterious light. Anyway he will be dead by morning, I thought.
But he wasn’t.
And he had shrunk to manageable proportions, so I released him and blessed his miraculous journey.
Easy for you, I said as a parting shot.
I would trade pure blind instinct such as his for my ‘intelligence’ any day.