Life As a Bug

A girl likes to catch crickets until one night she turns into one and experiences what life as a cricket is like

(Unfinished)

One scorching June day I walked down the sidewalk and saw a limping cricket. I picked the poor creature up and carried him home with me. I was enthralled by this cricket. I entered my front door and went to find my mom. I found her cooking in the kitchen and showed her my limping cricket. She immediately screamed and jumped up. What can I say? It’s not everyday that I bring home a limping cricket.

My name is Sandra Tanner and I’m currently in my eleventh year of living. I have black hair and chocolate-colored eyes. I like wearing Capri’s with long colorful shirts. I hate wearing dresses and skirts. An important fact that you will like to know about me is that I am obsessed with insects. Big ones, little ones, fat ones, skinny ones, harmless ones, poisonous ones, you name it. I am not only obsessed with them, but I capture them and wait until they die to add to one of my collection boxes. My hobby of imprisoning live insects and collecting dead ones grossed out my mom so much that one day she sent me to the one place that I despised, therapy.

The day we drove to my first and frankly, my last, therapy session I brought my limping little friend along. He was squiggling around in the depths of my pocket. My mom walked me inside, explained my problem to the therapist, and said she’ll be back at one. “If I get hungry, I’m consuming the cricket,” I said and she walked out with a frown.

“Hi Sandra,” my therapist said. “I’m Dr. Wen. Do you know why you’re here?

“Yes,” I replied.

There was a moment of silence before she asked, “Why?”

“You should know right?”

“Yes, but I’m asking you.”

“Ok. I like bugs.”

“And?”

“And my mother hates bugs.”

“Sandra, you’re here because you have a problem with bugs. You are a bug fanatic. This is unhealthy for a girl your age.”

“So, let me get this straight. A boy can collect insects and store them in boxes but not a girl? Is that what you’re hinting at?”

“Ok, do you ever think of how the bugs feel when you remove them from their environments, starve them to death, and keep the bodies?”

“Are you trying to avoid my question Doctor?”

“Answer this and I’ll answer yours. If you were the bug being picked up by a giant human hand how would you feel?”

“Ahh, you drive a hard bargain doctor, but I and I both know that if I was a bug I wouldn’t be here right now, therefore there’s no reason to answer that.”

Sensing she was getting nowhere, Dr. Wen sighed. “Ok, you leave me no choice. I hope your adventures help you to learn your lesson.” The therapist muttered a couple of strange words.

Later that day I told my mother that Doctor Wen crept me out and went on to describe the strange muttering that went on.

“It’s for your best, honey,” was my mother’s only reply.

For the rest of the day I did the usual things one does in a day. I Ate lunch, watched T.V., played hand wrestling with myself, set my dying limping cricket outside and tormented it, drunk a bowl of water, watched T.V., ate dinner, ate dessert, drunk a bowl of milk, dipped my cricket in it and watched him torture, got yelled at for drinking like a dog, got yelled at for dipping a cricket in my milk then drinking it (the milk not the cricket), brushed my teeth with blue toothpaste, took a shower, and finally, laid down for the night, but not without putting my cricket in a jar.

That night I had a dreadful nightmare. I was shrinking. I shrunk down to less than a foot tall, 11 inches, 10 inches, 9 inches, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, and finally, 3 inches. Nothing could be worse, but I was proven wrong when I woke up, like we do from all nightmares, and realized that my dream was my reality. I was literally 3 inches tall. Not only that but I was a bug. Not just any old kind of bug, a nasty little cricket.