Bug Snek

It was teeny tiny, about the size of a big strawberry seed. It was whitish-brown and gooey-looking. Glenda was bending down to get a closer look at the small object at the bottom of her trousers when she realized that the small object had sprouted two eye-stalks and was also trying to get a good look at her.

Glenda plucked the tiny creature off the bottom of her pants, and there it sat on her finger, semi-translucent and staring at her with its alien appendages.

Glenda squealed in delight, and turned to her girlfriend. “It’s a baby slug! Get me a jar! Now! quick! Please!”

Cindy looked a little squeamish about the prospective of bringing the small bit of goo inside, but fresh love does hilarious things to a person, and she found herself back outside with a clean empty jam container in her hands questioning her previous disgust of slimy animals.

”It’s...cute, actually.” Cindy had her face right near Glenda’s slug-bespoke digit. The two women were peering at the tiny wonder of nature when Cindy’s landlord, Jim, walked by and saw the two of them, nose to nose, transfixed by something he couldn’t see.

“Watcha ladies got there?” Jim, ever the curious and involved building caretaker, loved his tenants. The Evergreen was a building of mixed-ages and all sorts of backgrounds and cultures. Jim prided himself on bringing people together. He had lived in so many places, before taking over the Evergreen and they had all been missing an essential component. So when he’d taken over looking after The Evergreen he’d made it his goal to make the building a real home. Jim wanted to help start a community.

Jim loved Cindy. She had always paid her rent on time, and the first year she’d moved in she had planted flowers all around the front door the spring Jim had broken his foot and had needed the help. That was years ago now and they had continued to look after the growing garden together over last decade. Jim had been there as Cindy dated guy after guy after guy never finding anyone she with whom she connected. So last month when Cindy had asked if Glenda could move in, and he’d seen that sparkle in Cindy’s eye, he’d agreed immediately. Little did he know that with Glenda would come a love of all things creepy crawly and he never knew what sort of thing he’d find in their various terrariums at Friday tea.

“I think,” whispered Glenda, not wanting to scare the wee detritivore, “it’s a baby slug.”

”It’s so small! I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. I didn’t know they started out this bitty.” Jim whispered back in awe.

Cindy was also taken in by the curious way the slime-baby was taking in its world, its eye stalks showing a sort of remarkable curiosity not usually seen in human/slug encounters. It was as if this little creature had no fear of these giants by who it had been captured.

Glenda was immediately enamoured. “What do baby slugs eat?!”

Cindy got out her phone and began googling. “Lettuce...bananas...strawberries...cucumber.”

”I think I’ve got some old cucumber in my fridge!” Jim was excited fir some strange reason. Maybe it was because spring had just arrived, and he wanted to be a part of the magic that was evidently growing around Cindy and Glenda’s burgeoning relationship, and this slug, and their adopting it, was a sort of...sign of commitment. You might move in with someone before you fell in love, but you don’t adopt a slug with someone unless you really really love them.

It was a bright Saturday morning, and the other tenants of the building had begun to gather around this odd sight. Their landlord with a cucumber in his hand. Cindy with a jar. Glenda holding her finger up in front of their faces for some unknown reason.

The crowd came in closer, making a tight ring around the goings-on.

“A baby slug!” Joan, an older woman in her 80s, with pink hair and a penchant for listening to the Sex Pistols at 8am, exclaimed.

”What a small miracle!” Claire, an avid church-goer, who liked to spin small delightful uplifting sermons while Cindy gardened.

”Are you gonna keep it?!” That was Gideon, the resident whirlwind of a four-year old.

Cindy looked at Glenda, who was so taken in by the micro-being, its slime sparkling in the sunlight. She looked around at all the neighbours who had gathered, in shared awe of something hopeful and weird.

Glenda looked across the slug at Cindy, hopeful.

“You know what, Gideon? I think we are! But we need a name?” She looked at Glenda, and Glenda nodded gently.

“What do you think, Gideon? Do you want to do the honours?”

Gideon screwed up his face, and stood on his tippy toes trying to get a good look at the slug.

Glenda bent down ever so slowly so as to not to disturb the denizen on her finger.

Gideon got right up close his nose nearly touching Glenda’s finger, and through some act of telepathy available only to precocious four year olds and newly born slugs, Gideon exclaimed, “Its name is Bug Snek. It told me itself.”

Gideon looked over at his Dads, Garth and Beau, and smiled so proud of himself.

Jim began slicing the cucumber with his garden knife and Beau ran into the apartment having said something about an extra unused terrarium. Joan popped back out with cut up strawberries. Claire had gone inside and found a bottle for misting the inside of the tank.

Then there in the middle of the common area, outside 51 Cranberry Lane, the residents of the Evergreen Apartments built a small environment for their new friend, Bug Snek, together.

Glenda grabbed Cindy’s slug-free hand, and mouthed thank you. Glenda ever so gently lowered Bug Snek down into its new home and the teeny slug crawled off her finger onto a cucumber and began adorably munching as if it was finally where it was meant to be, home. Cindy looked over at Glenda and knew that she was also exactly where she was meant to be too, and snuck a quick kiss from her girlfriend before Gideon could even say “ewww”.