Little Black Beetle
Author:
priyamvada.dk@dexler.com
I saw him as
I left the house –
Upside-down;
quite undignified; flat on his back,
He was
waving his various legs in the air and moving his antennae around.
Ignominious,
he was aware of how ridiculous he looked.
I mused for
a while.
How does
Nature help these creatures to hoist themselves the right way up again?
Interesting
– let me look at him awhile –
The sadist
that I am.
Oh but
that’s our cat meowing: she doth advance.
She’s an
even greater sadist; keeps a pet cockroach in my work basket; takes him out;
looks at hime; bats him about; and puts him back in.
She checks
to see he doesn’t escape. The next day, she repeats these games.
Oh no, but
not my little fat black beetle lying on the drive-way.
I pick up a
fallen gulmohar twig and turn him the right way up.
He scuttles
away, just in time to escape my cat.
My husband
sits in the veranda, basking in the sunshine.
He has a
broken ankle; three legs including that elbow stick,
Which he
waves around like “House”.
Yet, for
everything else, he acts helpless, like the beetle overturned, legs flailing
helplessly.
I’ve turned
him over several times; helped him with his elbow stick to get wherever he
wants to.
Even God helps
only those who help themselves – but not this three-legged man:
His water
needs to come to him; so do his salads, his meds, his cat’s fish; his bathroom
thingies arranged just so and just so in a tray; his 4 or 5 towels; his
napkins, his fruit (peeled, if you please), and his newspaper.
His shirts
get ironed automatically; his neighbours wheel him into the huge ambulance for
his ortho checkups.
And these
get done, these get done, because people do not act like that cat or that
genuinely helpless beetle!