His crooked legs stretched out on either side of his sleek body. The shelf was dusty, but he was fresh, recently making his bed atop the black and white magazines. His death bed. He was belly up and lying still as a stone. He was not at eye-level. He didn't want to be at eye-level. He was always a loner. But this way, who knows how long he would go without being noticed! Which would normally be okay, but not on your death bed. How long would he go?
He would go unnoticed until the blonde, pigtailed seven year-old came tottering in with her mother. Her mother was a business woman, classy to the nines. But she liked artsy coffee shops, and so did the little girl. Her mother liked them because they were an easy escape from the recycled-air offices she flew in and out of all day. The little girl liked them because she always found the oddest things in the smallest corners. She, as it turns out, was at that sort of eye-level what caught sight of all the normally unnoticed things. In this case, she spotted our dead friend, belly up and unmoving to the nines.
Her mother ordered a peculiar drink that sounds much better than it tastes, I assure you. And while the transactions took place of money and drink (there may or may not have been a muffin involved), the little girl poked her head into the shelf where he lay in peace. She didn't dare touch him at first, one must ask permission before poking beyond shelves. But she did stare, and marveled at his body. For you see, as I told you before, he was belly up, but his belly was not that of normalcy. With this in mind, and recognizing his lack of life, she reached out a finger and poked him. Sure enough, he was a bug. A grasshopper, she concluded from a study of his wings and face. And another poke confirmed he was a toy bug of the plastic family. His belly bore a suction and he more than likely enjoyed using it because it was flat, as if pressed often to surfaces.
She whispered a little prayer for his suction bug soul and followed her mother to a nearby table, where she proceeded to draw crayoned pictures of him alive and well. She drew him leaping through fields and forests, swimming through waterfalls, and flying to the moon. His family came next in her drawings, a wife and a little girl suction bug (a daughter) with pigtails. And then she drew their house and showed her mother, who encouraged her with a kiss on the cheek. She concluded with a scene in Heaven and the suction bug stood before God, who was of course a cloud so far. The little girl stopped for a moment and considered the scene. Then she smiled and took to finishing the body of God. She made His arms outstretched, like the suction bug's arms on the shelf, and He was greeting the creature with a beaming embrace.
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