Life in a Bottle

I like bugs. I like small delicate insects. Itty-bitty and speckled or stout and hairy, I like them all. I like collecting dead bugs and putting them in pretty little glass bottles. Like a witch concocting a brew, 20 ml of ethanol, 10 of water, and a single teardrop to finalize the spell. Pushing each bottle closer together with the tip of my nail. Lining them all up on my trophy shelf. There's something special to me about preserving life after death.

What an odd girl I am for collecting dead bugs. As if you don’t collect your relatives’ bodies and store them underground or even on your mantle. Just like morticians setting up the body in a casket, making them look pretty. With a magnifying glass and needle I carefully move each limb to its prior glory.

Suddenly I'm back in middle school, running to the big bushes in my backyard. Carefully crawling under the poky shrub. I lay on my back and look up towards the branches. The cicadas that had been holding onto the branch for months began to shake. Splitting from their skin to molt and separate from the skeleton. A perfectly crafted genesis. What seemed like minutes were actually hours. The first being falls next to my head, and I know it's time to leave. However, I know not everyone feels the same way as I do.

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A plump spider makes its way into your bedroom. So repulsive and filthy. How dare that foreign invader trespass on your territory. The audacity of that spider. Voraciously pillaging for food and occupying your space. Meticulously plotting to crawl in every orifice of your body, laying its thousands of offspring in your skin. But you can see right through their plan. So you grab whatever’s closest to you, and whack as hard as you can.