Ode to a Stinkbug

I am a lowly stinkbug. And this is my tale.

I go where the wind takes me, which happened to be- one fateful evening- the attic room of Lindsey and Amelie.

On that cold, dark night, the wind howled and the clouds gathered so that I could scarcely flap my wings. I was at the mercy of the night sky and all alone in the world. Suddenly, I hit a house and quickly clutched my little stinkbug body to the brick, crawling further into a crevice in the wall.

The crevice went deeper and deeper and I followed it, glad to be farther from the night air, until I was creeping through the wall and into the attic room of the house. Warmth washed over my little legs and feet and my eyes drank in the light from a lamp. I surveyed my surroundings: two beds, two couches, some dressers, a shining lamp. My little beating heart began to warm inside my shivering exoskeleton. "Is this heaven?" I thought.

I shimmied up the side of the window by diving onto a curtain and hid myself in the folds of the fabric. And there I hung for many hours, defrosting my stinkbug brain and little stinkbug toes.

What came next was all a blur. There was a scream, hustling and bustling... more lights, more screaming... Lindsey and Amelie had seen something on the window, something right next to me! I was instantly on the alert! What had they seen that scared them so? Why were they screaming at the window in one second and at each other the next. Tossing a Kleenex back and forth like they were fighting over who should hold it. Yelling at each other and then without explanation rolling on their beds laughing. It was all so confusing.

Finally, some sort of strategy emerged out of their baffling interaction and the two tormented girls crept closer to the window, alternately whimpering and giggling. They crept so close to me that I began to realize how close I was to the danger they were going crazy over. My little feet that had been frozen in fear now clicked into survival mode. Whatever was waiting for me on that curtain-that thing that had Lindsey and Amelie so upset- I would be ready to stand my ground from it.

I skittered further into a fold the curtain (thinking a surprise attack was the best option, obviously). When you're a stinkbug, there isn't much you can do physically besides, well, stink. So, you don't have to be like actually giving the old one-two, you can be hiding at a distance. But, for some reason, as soon as I moved, a new wave of hysteria came over the humans and they could scarcely breath they were so undone by either my daring courage or my fearless protective in'stink'ts, maybe they were undone by both, who knows? All I do know for sure is that their little minds were taken over by this sudden confusion and without even looking at what they were doing, one of them (Lindsey) reached out with a Tupperware dish and knocked ME into it as the other (Amelie) slid the lid on top, trapping me inside this plastic prison.

Amid screams and such (were there tears? It was hard to tell from inside my circular jail cell), I was whisked down the stairs to the lower level of the house. All the while I was squealing and crying out, trying to get their attention. "You have the wrong offender!", "I am only a lowly stinkbug escaping the cold and damp", "the true danger is still on that curtain surely!" But to no avail.

Before I could even make out where they were taking me, the wrongful victim, I was suddenly being held only a foot above a giant swirling lake, a vortex of whitewater sloshing and being sucked down and away out of sight. My life flashed before my eyes (hatching, feeding, mating, curtains, betrayal) as Lindsey dropped the entire Tupperware into the water. The top came off and I fell out and was swept away, down, down, down... into darkness.

And it is from darkness that this story is written. A message written to you as a ghost. A forever haunting ghost. My destiny is to torment Lindsey and Amelie for all eternity, leaving a stink or an old leg here and there. And late at night as they sleep I whisper my final words to them on this earth "Not I! Not IIII!".

Even now as my little ghostly stinkbug body is jumping from computer key to computer key, typing this "anonymous" post on Amelie's computer, I am reliving those last moments with a shudder and reaffirmed in my resolve.

So, let this be a warning to all those who hunt Stinkbugs in this life: If ever ye be unkind to a Stinkbug, think on this tale of woes of Amelie and Lindsey, the accursed Stinkbug Murderers, and be ye kind to all stinky things, lest ye be haunted by "The Stink." Ahem (that's me).

The End.