A Day in the Life, of a Beetle

The migrant maiden was stirred to life by the avalanche of pumpkin spiced air spilling out the coffee shop’s open back door. Her dullened mind was shaken into clarity by the consecutive quakes from one plastic bag after another being flung by a disinterested barista into her dumpster. Unfolding her wings and stretching them wide, the hopeless beetle elected to abandon that frosty trash in search of one last meaningful day.

She chose the name Randi, which she had gotten from a used sedici-size cup that did not make its way into the garbage. Randi took flight heading into the aroma, crossing the threshold a second before the door was pulled closed. After a few dizzy twists and turns, she finally landed on the neck-strap of a green apron hanging from a peg. It was a good place to reconnoiter. The room was cozy warm and filled with crated delights. As she licked on a sweet stain in the apron’s fabric, Randi noticed, from the tops of her eyes, a brighter light pouring from deeper inside.

Though her wings also folded into a shiny curved shell with symmetrical black dots, she was not the round red ladybug that most humans adored. Randi was browner, more oval than the ladybug. Different enough to make the humans sneer. There were no rhymes written about her kind. When ladybugs gathered, the humans called it a loveliness. When her kind gathered the humans called the exterminator.

She had nothing against ladybugs. In fact, her descendants were sent over to help them do battle with the invasive pecan and soybean aphids that threatened to overwhelm her precious cousins. Being the bigger beetle with an equally bigger bite, her species completed their mission with great success. Yet they were never treated as the heroes they were commissioned to be. It was as if the humans wanted the war to end with some tragic tie, no more aphids, no more Asian Ladybeetles, just cute red sweet-smelling ladybugs.

From the coat rack the inquisitive insect coptered to the top of a refrigerator. The back of the chest purred with cold wet coils that offered the most refreshing sips. From there, Randi’s six synchronized legs carried her across a stretch of dry cardboard, then over a landscape of smooth tile spangled with aromatic grindings and bits of delectable biologicals. As the bitty beetle nibbled, she pushed ever toward the light.

The great hall was immense, flowing with preoccupied people of all shapes and sizes, each pushing past another to claim their sumptuous, cupped prize. No one noticed Randi, so more than once she nervously skidded to a petrified halt, barely avoiding a catastrophic crush from an unwitting sole. The worried invertebrate finally found safety near the counter’s edge. To calm her nerves, Randi licked the mites off her tiny tarsi.

The soothing music that filled the room also relaxed her some. Randi regained her composure and reacquired her bearings. That’s when she spotted it, the light of life beaming through the blinds of the windows to the south. And from that side of the great hall also came a scent so alluring, it pulled at her with a force even greater than the one currently luring the humans to that very store.

Randi knew the quickest way to end her search would be to fly. And she could make it that far, she knew that. But the gritty beetle was practical if not beautiful. Even at frenetic full-throttle buzz, on wing she could muster little more than an ungraceful slow-rolling corkscrew flight pattern. That kind of riskiness got noticed, got many of her siblings swatted to death or eaten by birds. It would be a long crawl, but Randi had the discipline for the journey.

Asian Ladybeetles, also called Harlequin Beetles were good at three things: eating aphids, using their smelly yellow secretion to ward off enemies, and climbing. So off she went, tenaciously traversing the wall, clinging to the smallest vertical occlusions, paying no mind to the pry of gravity.

At midday, Randi stopped to feed on the carcass of a housefly that had lost a run-in with a spider. Even as her hungry mandibles pinched off a bit of desiccated thorax, the adventurous arthropod could not stop thinking about that hairy murderous spider. Truth be told, Randi wished she were feasting on its eggs, rather than the remains of its prey. And where was that killer beast now? Why in the world did she stop within its killing field? Randi secreted a little, wondering how she could be so daft, then promptly resumed her lonely quest for something meaningful.

The resolute beetle spent every bit of the next hour climbing up and onto a dark lacquered table. All that exertion dried her out (she always seemed to be dried out lately.) Still, the brave insect soldiered on. And her prayers were soon answered when she discovered a moisture ring left by the butt of a human’s icy drink. The satisfying moisture filled Randi with hope again. But as she pivoted to continue her crawl, her world suddenly went dark.

Was she dead? Did she finally succumb to some stomp, or swat, or maybe that spider’s pounce? She rubbed her eyes, opened them wide- nothing. The blackness persisted. But that music was still there, she could hear. Then came the sound of muffled voices.

“What was that, a ladybug?”

“No. It’s one of those damned oriental beetles. The kind that’ll bite you, that stink when you squash them.”

“Well don’t kill it here.”

“Hold on a second, I’ll be right back.”

Randi relied on her antennae to evaluate her dark enclosure. It was as high as she was long, with perfectly circular edges. Randi soon realized that she’d been trapped under one of their precious cups! Trying not to panic, the astute sub-creature reasoned that humans lifted their cups frequently. When this one did, she would run for her life. She pressed against the bottom’s edge, waiting for her chance to escape.

But the drink was not lifted evenly, or with the human’s usual languid rhythm. It was tilted, and quickly too. Before Randi could bolt, she was pinched under a squeeze of napkin. Despite her secretions, she was carried away.

It was Randi’s near precognitive sense for danger that saved her. Just before the pinch, she clenched into her shell. The quick defensive maneuver, coupled with the force-dampening quality of the padded tissue, was enough for her to avoid the deadly crunch.

Randi emerged from the wadded paper to find herself in the bin marked for the landfill. Once again, the lonesome bug found herself in the garbage. But she had to admit, it wasn’t all that bad. The inside trash was warmer and more sweet smelling. But she knew it was only a matter of time before inside trash became outside garbage. And these days, it was just too cold outside.

So, she climbed. She ascended paper sleave bags and wax-coated cups. At the top of the heap, then scaled a straw that seemed to point the way. When she reached its tasty tip, Randi realized life was too short to overdose on patience. The time had come to take to the air. Scanning the room to confirm that all the humans were otherwise engaged, she unfurled her wings and started her body humming. As ridiculous as it was, all that commotion lifted her from the mouth of the human’s sipping tube. Randi leaned toward the light.

Growing up an uncoordinated twerp, Randi had grown used to clumsy landings. When she hit the invisible window, her exoskeleton acted as a sort of crash helmet. She dropped to the sill but stuck the landing, shaking off the sting before surveying the new surroundings. That alluring fragrance was so strong now, she could see it. Like fuse-wire pulled from sand, she began following the scent line to its dangerous destination. As she scuttled, the smooth glass cooled her outer belly, while anticipation heated her inner yolk.

Randi’s antennae spread wide when she came upon the source of the fragrant tendrils. It was a convocation of her kind hidden by the blinds at the corner of the pane. Dozens of Asian ladybeetles, all enthralled, all abustle, like remote-controlled micro bumper cars, all brushing and nudging against one another.

No one ever taught Randi how to dance. But somehow she recognized these moves. Their final celebration of life. She pushed her way into the jubilation. The late autumn sun cast an orange glow through the glass that highlighted their pumpkin-colored shells. While the deep raspy voice of Louis Armstrong sang about leaves of green and their wonderful world, she bathed in the luxurious aroma of acceptance and love. And she danced. For her, it was the perfect moment.

Then, sifted from the mosh frolic, came a beetle as fresh as she could imagine. The M marking on their back was sharp and stunning, and that white pronotum only enhanced those smiling eyes. That alluring scent that compelled Randi to make the arduous journey across the great hall was deliciously excreted from this exceptional one.

From the point of encounter, Randi could no longer maintain her defenses. She was unable to stop herself from connecting with her counterpart, who made the most of Randi’s abandoned doubt. As they danced, Randi thought about the strange day she had, that started with her cold surrender to death. Now, she was chosen by one of their finest, and in that glorious instant, was gifted with their potent concentrate- a fourth thing at which Asian Ladybeetles excelled.

As the sun set on their encounter, all the strength she had built from her travails melted away. Or more precisely, all her impetus was replaced with a new kind of strength, one of blissful understanding. Randi knew what she needed to do.

With fear no longer in the equation, Randi fluffed out her wings and took to the wind one last time. With so little strength she flew, and when she could buzz no longer, she glided, then fell to the edge of the door. She found a gusty fracture just big enough for her to slip through. Outside, everything was coated in frosty crystal. She folded her antennae and retracted her legs, to allow the wind to blow her dry curved body like a tumbleweed, over the cold hard ground. She rolled over gravel, briefly caught against a cigarette, before ending in a lovely patch of tall dead grass.

Those eggs she felt activate inside her thorax, that exquisitely drained all her strength on the windowpane, she deposited one by one along the last two inches of her final climb. Then she dug her six tarsi claws deep into the brittle brown blade of grass, so she would still be there, to feed them in the spring. It was a good end to things, she thought; though she wished she could have met a ladybug.