My Very First

Little Demon Bug

This evening I was sitting in my apartment, minding my own business, when I began to hear this strange sound. It was “flap flap flap BAP…flap flap flap BAP” over and over. I got up to see what was happening, and there was a cicada flying around my nice new lamp.
For those in far-away places, a cicada is a locust-like creature, as wide as my thumb but not as long, big enough that you hear its wings flapping rather than just a buzz. It is completely alien-looking. It is clumsy and stupid, and also makes a horrible shrieking noise when it wants to talk to its friends. I was very pleased that it was not making the noise right then, but I knew that soon I would turn off the lamp and at that point the only light source in the apartment would be my computer monitor. I couldn’t have the big stupid clumsy thing flying around my face all night (plus which the lamp is one of those Chinese-type lamps with a paper shade and it was hitting the shade so hard I was afraid it would break through), but I try not to kill for no reason, so I determined to catch it and put it out the window.
As I say, they’re clumsy, and catching one is no kind of problem. Pretty much right away I was able to grab it. I was careful to hold it actually IN my hand, rather than grabbing it by a wing; if I’d done that, it would have broken the wing trying to escape from me. So I wrapped it gently in my palm and headed for the bathroom (the only window that doesn’t have a screen).
That’s when it started shrieking.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the sound, but if you haven’t, it’s extremely unpleasant, and is less pleasant the closer you are to it. It is the shrieking of souls in hell. Furthermore (and this is something I could totally have lived happily without knowing) when they shriek they vibrate like tiny, creepy cell phones. And it was doing this right there in my hand.
Reflexively I let it go, which I suppose proves that evolution knew what it was doing when it gave them that particular characteristic. How can something so small make that awful noise?
Seriously, I was present at the death of my father. I have been in a fatal car accident. I have witnessed a man being shot to death. I have killed a poisonous snake and fought off a wild dog. I have beaten and escaped from a potential rapist twice my size. But I don’t think I have ever felt a stronger sense of horror than I felt at that moment, with that awful noise and that vibration coming from my own hand. I knew it couldn’t hurt me, but I threw it away from me. It flew right back to the lamp.
I had a feeling that my prehistoric ancestors, who had hunted the mammoth and fought the saber-toothed tiger away from their young, were ashamed of me.
I went and poured myself a shot of whiskey. I lit a smoke, took a drag, and went back to the lamp. I caught it again and wrapped it in my palm, and again it shrieked and vibrated. I stood for a few seconds, smoking, refusing to open my hand, refusing to crush it.
After a while it stopped complaining and decided to wait and see what would happen next. I calmly carried it through to the bathroom and released it. It flew away silently. I hope the rest of its night was better. The rest of mine almost had to be.
I posted a shorter version of this story on Facebook as a sort of joke, but I’ll tell you the truth: as stupid as it sounds, I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything more difficult than standing there, with that shrieking bug in my hand, and refusing to be creeped out. I hope my prehistoric ancestors are satisfied.