It was a warm sunny day in my backyard when I noticed a ladybug in my pool. I stepped inside and brought ladybug out of the water.
We, ladybug and I, symbiosed for quite a while. She tried to fly away, but she could not.
She tried to extend her wings, but her wing covers, the elytra, were stuck because they were wet and she tried to fly away, but could not.
She crawled on my hand for some time, then tried again to lift her elytra, but she could not. Poor ladybug, I could feel her frustration.
Then, after numerous attempts, she finally lifted her black dotted, red elytra. Oh I was so happy!
Next, she tried to extend her wings, but she could not.
The wings under the elytra are ever so delicate and thin. Poor lady bug! Now I felt the struggle escalate; her wings were crumpled and stuck together. She tried and tried, but still she could not. I was suffering with her.
She kept exerting pressure, but the wet wings would not budge, they were crumpled in a ball. She kept exerting pressure and more pressure, until eventually I started to see the ball open up, one small increment at a time. Her wings would open up, dry a little. As they did, it looked as if they were completely broken. I thought, poor ladybug, she cannot fly ever again.
But after many, many repetitions and attempts, finally she was able to fully extend her wings. Oh how beautiful they looked, so delicate, tiny, thin and alive, and I could feel how relieved she was, stretching in victory and stretching them wide.
She crawled forward in an attempt to fly off, but she could not.
On the next attempt though, she flew off my finger. But sweet little ladybug could not fly too far and fell right back into the pool, in the same spot I had found her.
Oh ladybug made me laugh and almost cry. I picked her back up again, she crawled out of the pool and onto my hand. There we were again, back to square one. I put lady bug down on the floor next to me, as I wanted to get to reading Brida by Paulo Coelho.
After a short while, I looked down to see if lady bug was still there, I did not see her. She must have flown away. Her destiny, I do not know, maybe she was destined to stay in the pool, maybe she fell back in the pool again, or maybe she flew off to where she was going before I found her in the pool. I would like to think she flew off far and away.
© 2009
