Karma had never been quite so cruel as when Benji found the insectoid in the kitchen on a Thursday between environmental club and junior lacrosse practice. The insectoid had a thin, velvety body and triple-jointed limbs. It was bent into the oven removing a pot pie when it heard Benji’s footsteps halt suddenly on the linoleum floor. It extracted its upper thorax from the oven and straightened to a full, gangly height, then swiveled on a wire-thin neck to see Benji through two hundred crystalized pupils. The insectoid’s jaw dropped and it screamed in a high-pitched, shrill voice: “Benji, get over here and help your mother in the kitchen!”
Benji paused. This is not my mother, he thought. And yet—he leaned closer and squinted. The insectoid was wearing his mother’s charm bracelet. He discreetly peered closer to see that the bracelet was not missing any of its silvery charms, which might have torn off in a tussle or been damaged in an anthropophagous act. And, Benji thought with a sniff, there appeared to be nothing incorrect about the smell of the pie, either.
“Yes, Mom. You remember I have practice today though, right?”
“How could I forget?”
His insectoid mother smiled sweetly and gave Benji’s hair a scrunch, her stick-like pinchers catching on a few strands of hair and pulling them out. Benji looked at his insect mother with suspicion. She was acting unusually attentive. Benji put on oven mitts, and the insect passed him the pot pie. He inhaled deeply and furrowed his brow at its familiar scent. He set it on top of the oven and used a metal spatula to divide it into slices, glancing up at the insectoid while he worked. He subtly checked the pie for mealy worms and roly polies, but, finding none, took a section of the pie and sat down at his place at the table.
“Do you think my hair looks strange today?” she asked, petting an empty space near the crown of her exoskeleton head. “The other moms at the drop-off asked me if I was trying a new style…”
Benji nodded and feigned a thoughtful glance at his mother’s exoskeletal skull.
“…and I haven’t had it cut anytime recently. It must just be that new shampoo I bought!” She brought her pot pie to the table and sat down.
“No, Mom. I don’t think it looks too different.” He looked at her antennae, her kaleidoscope eyes. He wouldn’t be too unhappy if she stayed this way. She seemed more agile, with her long and precise limbs and micro-focused mandibles. She seemed more caring, with her chemoreceptory antennae and prismatic eyes. He wondered what it might be like to have an insect for a mother.
She pushed up from the table swiftly and began digging through the kitchen cabinets.
“Mom, what are you looking for?”
“Eggs,” she rasped.
“Eggs?”
“Yeah.”
“Look in the fridge.” He sighed.
She thrust open the fridge door and grasped the egg carton with a pincher, swung it around to the counter and extracted four eggs. She pitched each into the air and caught and punctured them with four quick stabbing motions, stacking them in a neat row of oozing yolk, then sucked the yolk from the leaking holes.
Benji watched for a moment then turned back to his food. It was kind of gross. He was meditating on a mouthful of corn when something hit him like a swatter to a fly.
In the schoolyard that day, Joyce had been sitting on the swing set with Chris. Benji had been near the cracked brick wall, half-watching while simultaneously pretending to be thinking of more important things, when Chris abruptly stood and marched about fifteen feet forward from the swing. Chris picked up a dark brown stick with such caution that Benji leaned forward. He watched as the brown thing climbed up Chris’s arm. Joyce sprang off the swing and shrieked, arms outstretched, then went closer to Chris and, hands tentative, touched the brown thing on his shoulder. She had marvelled at the praying mantis for a second, then looked around the schoolyard, and seeing only Benji, called him over.
He approached and said something that came out awkward and stilted. He couldn’t remember now, but it was something in the way Chris didn’t look at him, or in how he could see Joyce’s eyes dance while she watched Chris—it was truly something in being so invisible there, that Benji tore the mantis from Chris’s shoulder, flung it to the ground, and stomped it into a paste. He whirled and tramped away, feeling tears itch his nose and warble his chin. He could hear Joyce’s shrieks behind him and the crunch of gravel as Chris knelt to comfort her. He ran toward the woods beyond the schoolyard, and began to cry. It was over, now, and Joyce would probably hate him, but at least he’d never have to see that bug again.
A bug’s life can be just as fulfilling, or tragic, or banal — E.F. Kramer takes the Nassau Weekly from hatch to squash to… whatever comes next.