The Beetle

He spoke with grandiose - stuffing potato salad into his mouth, a lump catching on the grey strands of his goatee. A tan line on his wrist from his hospital bracelet. He had always been borderline obese but his height and broadness shaped him more like a croissant. He had lost weight which managed to make his personality worse. 

He had always thought of himself as handsome, his prized possession being his neatly combed goatee which he would have protected by UNESCO if he could. He didn't believe in suncream and claimed he had heritage in Egypt so cancer would never get him. Even now, sitting outside the Beach Cafe he denied that fact. 

I wonder why I ever married - especially to someone who took up so much space. At times, when he would enter a room I would feel the need to open a window or a door and if there were neither I would open a jar, the bread tin and feel myself falling inside like a tiny beetle. 

Years passed and I found myself shrinking. I could hear the raindrops and taste the air. Dissociating out of my life and associating into the microcosm. Even now as he muttered on about himself and his success - his trials and tribulations - I watched a black beetle crawl away with a tiny crumb from his plate. Dave gestured and threw his arm around the chair - spreading himself like oil over water. The beetle somersaulted onto the sandy boardwalk - crumb still intact. He wobbled from side to side. Legs reaching and reclining like he was attending a yoga class. People stomped around, the vibrations wobbled him. He skurried his legs in when a foot came near, shuffling his back into the wedges of the boardwalk. 

The sun started setting and the storming footsteps lessened. The beetle lay there, hopeless listening to the waves of the boundless sea - crumb still intact. Praying to the beetle Gods - a dung beetle crowned and dressed in red robes, turd in a suit, deciding its fate. Fireflies buffered around the boardwalk like small coast guards. Their wings chopping like a helicopter until they dispersed in unison - agreed the beetle is beyond saving. One leg twitches, maybe another spinning session was on the cards, or rigor mortis. 

Dave paid the bill - three sermons later - potato salad still intact. I took in the sea air as I stood on the boardwalk waiting for Dave to finish flirting with the waitress. The sky was bleeding between shades of red, yellow and purple like it had been punched a thousand times over. I looked down at the beetle, his master. Death going unnoticed at my doorstep. I pinched a leaf from a weed that persevered through the boardwalk and lightly touched the beetle like a child would. He didn’t budge. I tipped him over onto his feet. Motionless - crumb still intact. Dave shouted over the boardwalk fence. I heard a skurry. The little beetle fled.

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