When Stephen leaves for the dentist, he asks me to catch the grasshopper that's on the inside of the bathroom window curtain and take it outside. "Do you want to do your good bug deed for the day?" is how he asks it. I take a water glass into the bathroom and gently lift the curtain back, cup the glass over the grasshopper's body, then slowly lower the glass down, sliding it against the curtain, until I can slip a piece of paper across the rim and trap the grasshopper inside.
I take a moment to view my captured friend. It sits on the curved inner surface of the sideways glass, tiny bright green body, angled limbs and antennae. As if it's not at all cornered in a small pocket of space, it sort of casually raises one of its hands to its mouth, grooming. Making itself pretty.
I take it outside. I don't want to put it in the grass because the grass is dead and hot in the beating-down sun and maybe the grasshopper will die of this heatwave, so I let it go next to that low-to-the-ground plant that creeps across the pavement in the corner where the shade is.
At the very edge of that creeping plant something is moving. I crouch down. It's a bee. It's lying sideways on the pavement, little limbs twitching, and at first I think it's fallen over and can't right itself. I consider taking the corner edge of my piece of paper and using it to gentle the bee upright. But then I think, no, the bee is dying. If you're dying, you don't want someone coming along and trying to shove you up on your feet.
The other day I saw one of those memes showing a closeup of a bee with text declaring that these are the most important animals in the world.
I sit down next to the bee. There are tiny spots of bright orange pollen on its legs. I don't want to leave it, somehow. Its tiny legs twitch in an almost frantic, convulsive way.
Even in the shade, the pavement is hot. This burning planet.
The bee slows its twitching.
The bee dies.
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