(I say ‘apparently’ because I’m not a pathologist and so I
didn’t perform a post mortem examination. It’s just that the bottom of the
bathtub was wet and this thing looked all bedraggled and floppy, so I thought
it reasonable to assume it had drowned. I do realise that evidence which is at
best circumstantial would hardly get a conviction in a court of law, but it
seemed reasonably convincing in the circumstances. May we assume, therefore,
that the insect had drowned and move on? OK.)
It was one of those little flying things with a long, dangly
bit which hangs down and swings back and forth as the insect dances in the last
rays of the evening sun. I assumed it had got into my hair or something
while I was gardening. And since I’d washed my hair while taking a shower, a
picture of the tragic circumstances under which this little being had met its
end seemed clear.
I was devastated, of course, as I always am when I have
reason to believe that I have been responsible, albeit unwittingly, for the
demise of a fellow traveller. But then I had a thought: if this creature had
not become entangled in my hair and been lost to the world courtesy of the
relentless flow of water from a shower rose, it might well have been eaten by a
bat instead. So then I took to wondering which of the two causes of terminal
effect would be preferable: being drowned or being eaten by a hungry carnivore. If
it were me, I think I would prefer drowning. So then I felt better.
… until I considered the poor bat which had been denied a
mouthful of sustenance in a cruel world in which survival is the primary
imperative. Is anybody taking this seriously?
I did say that being me can sometimes be difficult, didn’t
I?
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