09.20.2007 - 10:46 a.m.

This morning I got into my car, and was not paying a great deal of attention to what I was doing as I rounded the cul-de-sac, meandered out of the neighborhood, turned onto the main road. I didn't pay attention until 40 or 50mph, when the green fluttering on the edge of my hood caught my eye.

It was a praying mantis that had been sitting on my car, minding his own business, when his perch ran away with him. I slowed, coasting as I waited for a bit of shoulder or a turn-off, watching him brace against a wind that plastered his head sideways and buffeted his arms as if they were sails.

I pulled into a nameless driveway, then grabbed the map from my door and got out, sliding it gently towards him in an apologetic offering of a safer mode of transportation. I could release him in the grass, I figured.

He lifted one leg, then another... and then flew away. I didn't know they could fly, and I wanted to cry as he dwindled; he was right not to trust me.

-stonebridge

previous | next