A beetle just frightened me by slamming itself against this screen. Dear. God. I am not normally frightened by such inconsequential things – spiders are the only insect that truly has a surefire, no nonsense way of terrifying me, but it was huge and silver. It was like a shiny, three-dimensional half dollar (okay, okay, more like a quarter) with no monetary value that moved around on legs – LEGS!
I turned on the light and it flew to the opposite wall and fell behind a large framed poster. It crawled and resurfaced. I could feel my face taking on a sickly, pale shade. It made angry buzzing noises, twitching antennae moving from side to side. I vaguely wondered if it wanted to make peace with me, if it was trying to establish some sort of interspecies greeting.
No such luck. It clicked threateningly and I picked up the righty of my favorite pair of brown sneakers. I misinterpreted its clicks after all – it committed suicide and fell two feet, landing with an audible cracking sound. I pushed the television stand aside, sneaker at the ready in case it was merely a feint move meant to lure me closer.
It fell into a hidden dust bunny. A large one. I wondered if it cushioned its fall. No sign of life. A few terse seconds passed by and I slammed the sneaker down on it (to put it out of its misery, of course). My father heard the commotion from two rooms away and sleepily lumbered over. His eyes were bloodshot from being roused out of sleep and he subconsciously rubbed his hand over the neat vertical scar running along his lower back from surgery last summer.
“There was a beetle,” I explained lamely.
“Let me guess – it scared you?” he quipped, trying to keep his expression stoic.
I could read the amusement in his eyes as I responded, “It attacked my laptop.”
He smiled now and bent down with a piece of paper towel at the ready, scooping it along with the dust. He reminded me of a young boy, opening the napkin and staring at the small, still body. I tried to imagine my father in his childhood and could almost see him poking at the beetle corpse with an inquisitive fingertip. I mused over this image, picturing him, even now, to resist jabbing at it. I raised an eyebrow at him and he refolded the napkin, giving it a light squeeze in the ball of his fist. A muffled, but still definite crunch noise followed. I felt a twinge of pity for the poor thing, but still imagined my dad as a little boy, reopening the napkin for a quick peek.
“Thanks, Dad,” I cringed, giving him a sheepish smirk. I’m 21, but sometimes it’s really good to be home.
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