Fly
away, now
The
ladybug leaned against the window frame and crossed its lower right
leg over its lower left. It took a drag from a nearly microscopic
cigar and blew an even smaller smoke ring.
"Yep,
this is all mine. I made the whole shebang," it added, by way of
explanation, seeing John's look of confusion.
John
had written about talking pigs, etc., but never a talking insect.
Was one kind of talking animal more or less improbable than another?
Somehow it seemed that talking mammals were more plausible than bugs.
"Hello!
Anybody in there?" The ladybug pointed at John with the cigar.
"What?
All what? The whole shebang of what?" John clicked save,
though he'd written so little that losing the file wouldn't matter
much.
"Everything.
The universe. Didn't even take a week." If an insect ever
looked smug, this one did.
John
shook his head vigorously to clear his mind. "Ha ha. It almost
sounded like you said you created the universe. But you know, we
already know who did that. There's a book about it, maybe you've
heard of it." Having come to the conclusion that he was
hallucinating, John had decided to play along.
Mistake.
"You
think I'm stupid? Of course I know about the book, I wrote it.
Surely you don't think your primitive ancestors were equipped to
handle the information that they had been invented by a bug. You
don't seem to be doing too well with it yourself." The ladybug
stubbed the cigar out on the window sill and tossed the butt out the
window. John winced. He hated litterbugs.
"You
know, that's bad for you. Bad for the environment too. North
Carolina and Virginia should never have gotten started cultivating
tobacco in the first place. And, what's up with evolution? Is it
real? Are birds really dinosaurs? And, if you're a benevolent God,
why do bad things happen to good people? Is it really so we can have
free will? Because, you know, I don't think that's a legitimate
justification."
The
ladybug seemed to sigh. "I don't think you've been paying
attention. That benevolent god crap was something humans made up
because they can't handle the truth. Who said I was benevolent? Why
should I be? Arthropods are "r" strategists. Have enough
kids and some are bound to survive. Benevolence is neither necessary
nor desirable. And it's not like you're real. All I have to do is
snap my --"
SLAMBO!!
John
scraped the bug guts off on the edge of the sill and tossed the book
down on his desk. It was time for a drink.
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