{"id":573,"date":"2008-04-30T23:51:39","date_gmt":"2008-05-01T06:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/?p=573"},"modified":"2008-05-02T07:52:24","modified_gmt":"2008-05-02T14:52:24","slug":"a77-dying-beetle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/?p=573","title":{"rendered":"#a77 :: Dying beetle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ENLARGE\"<\/a>What possesses us?<\/p>\n

We crawl to and fro on a world so vast we can’t understand it, pilule<\/a> let alone navigate it. We consume, dosage<\/a> we procreate, ask<\/a> we fight, we recover.<\/p>\n

If we’re fortunate, we create something useful – food, tools, homes, art, information. Then, whatever it was that propelled us around all those years deserts us – or is booted roughly from the meat vehicle in which it rode – by famine, disease, war, madness, neglect or simply age.<\/em>I spotted this creature on the front steps around lunchtime. Hunh<\/em>, I thought. Dead bug<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When I returned this evening, it was still there. Might as well shoot it. Miniaturized exoskeletons are<\/strong> quite wonderful<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And as I scoop it up, it twitches, then begins flailing its legs pitiably. I try setting it upright, but something’s wrong with its wiring – the legs go in all directions, but not the one that would flip it over. It reaches, strains, thrashes at the air, but not at the ground around it.<\/p>\n

I carry it inside to the light table – black on black won’t photograph well enough – and start shooting. It stops moving.<\/p>\n

Dead? I touch it. It struggles. Nope.<\/p>\n

Hours later, I come back. Its legs are curled. I take another photo, and the lens brushes it. It moves.<\/p>\n

A spirit so small clings to the only place it can exist, a tiny, broken carriage of nerves and chitin and goo.<\/p>\n

How deep is its self-awareness, as it waits for the end? How deep is mine?<\/p>\n

Waiting to see what happens next.<\/p>\n

Footnote: The next morning, whatever was inside it seems to have gone. It’s now a dead bug. No, wait, it just twitched and wriggled and thrashed again. I put it in the shrubbery – it deserves to pass in its true home, not splayed atop some vast, flickering fluorescent plain of plastic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What possesses us? We crawl to and fro on a world so vast we can’t understand it, pilule let alone navigate it. We consume, dosage we procreate, ask we fight, we recover. If we’re fortunate, we create something useful – food, tools, homes, art, information. Then, whatever it was that propelled us around all those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,6,27],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-found-object","category-jetsam","category-life-form","tag-life-form"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}