Bug

By Clyde Liffey

While waiting for the shower one morning not long ago, I opened a bag of currants to chew on while perusing the Sunday paper. I heard something crunch, swallowed instead of spat, examined the bag, saw a yellow ladybug inside looking for its mate or so I imagined. I fastened the bag shut, suppressed the urge to retch, heard the shower stop.

Todd or Ross – my housemates all have monosyllabic names like that – emerged from the bathroom, proudly dangling. I took my clothes in, locked the bathroom door, began my furtive toilet. There was nothing untoward on my teeth or gums. The change within me intensified under the tap. Too soapy to turn it off, I nonetheless did, wiped myself clean as best I could with a washrag, something I rarely use.

I returned to the kitchen, saw Scott, not the peacock who preceded me in the bathroom, fastening the bag of currants. “You need to keep these bags sealed,” he said, “you could let bugs in.”

“You might suffocate the bugs already inside,” I answered.

He said nothing, put the bag in the refrigerator. The people here practice some sort of Jainism though they keep dogs, raise chickens for eggs and sometimes meat, I still don’t understand them, I may be on the outs with them.

Sunday is a day of rest even on the farm. Most of the residents were in the great room gabbing about their plans. I was sick, I wasn’t contagious, I thought it best to be with people. I sat in a low chair next to one of the women. Nobody noticed me or, if they did, they didn’t show it. There was a buzzing in my head, I should eat, I should drink, I didn’t want to get up, not so soon after sinking down. The conversation changed after I entered. I could hardly hear anyone, did I imagine a clamor before I entered?

After a suitable length of time – ten, thirty minutes, an hour? – I rose, made a vague salute, and climbed the steps to my room. My bed was of course unmade. A week or so worth of dirty clothes lay scattered about. I removed some from my easy chair, sat again. I didn’t doze. Birds chirped outside. Were they speaking louder downstairs? I opened the window to better hear the world without. The fresh air might have revived me.

Resolute at last, I went outside. A few of the dogs followed me. They kept their distance, they were pets, they weren’t pets, there was little for them to do.

I came to this farm to pursue a healthy lifestyle. The board, this place has a board like a co-op or condominium, nodded. Somehow, I was accepted. I took the vegan vow. Only some founders were still weaning themselves off meat. I’d read of course that even the most hardened granola cruncher might eat a bug by accident, this was acceptable like an evil that stems from a Christian’s best intentions. The article didn’t say anything about the health effects. Microbes, after all, are much smaller than bugs.

Pure hearts are the worst: that’s what I was learning during my stay here. When I stop learning I’ll die, there’s nothing worth knowing, I despise anything gnomic.

I looked back at the house. Some chickens and guinea fowl were pecking in the bare dirt. There weren’t any dogs to protect them. I wondered what would happen when the chickens molt, not so many months ahead.

The sun was shining, I’d forgotten cap and sunblock. I squinted, took my bearings, almost stumbled. The crops grew in uneven rows to either side of me, I took care to stay on the narrow path. I headed to the river, more a stream than a river, a border of our farm.

I came upon a stand of trees, strange to have shade trees on a farm, but our principles forbid felling them, we grow only crops - peppers, tomatoes, and the like - that can have their fruits plucked. We grow berries too, the currants I ate this morning weren’t grown on this farm, we sell them fresh, buy the dry kind with the proceeds, I don’t know how this place stays afloat, donations I guess. I collapsed underneath the trees.

When I awoke my throat was dry. The sun was almost directly overhead. If I’d noticed its position when I left, I’d have an idea how long I was out, I almost never do that, I’ll never be a real farmer. I passed my hand over my forehead. Everything felt constricted. I stood up, not as a newborn colt feeling its legs gets up but as a clumsy man does.

It was the time when deer sleep. I tramped down the slope, the ribbon of water visible beyond the bushes. The people in the house were cooking, they weren’t cooking, I couldn’t abide that place, novitiates are trying. An eternal tyro, I’d come here looking for vision, saw nothing, learned little. I’d eaten something, probably a brown beetle, expected nourishment, felt only nausea so far.

I stood in front of a clump of gooseberry bushes, they let us grow gooseberries, host of the white pine’s scourge, so much for harmony among plants. The berries, burnished by the gleaming sun, were the color of the ladybug crawling among the currants. I picked a ripe one. Distracted by gnats flitting about me, I clamped my mouth shut.

Clyde Liffey lives near the water.