Splat

Under the covers, both awake, way past bedtime.

Me (the insomniac): Tell me a story.

Ron (dark circles under his eyes from a job with early hours and a sleepless wife): What kind of story?

Me: Something I don’t know about you.

Ron: You know everything.

Me: No I don’t. Anything. Any story at all.

Ron: There was a little bug in a pond. He blinked and blinked, trying to get his bearings. Once he figured out that he had just been born, he tried to learn how to swim. He mustered all his strength and struggled through the water, spending his days hiding under rocks, escaping the fish who tried to eat him.

Me: Yeah?

Ron: Then he grew bigger and became a little more confident, just a little. But suddenly he started to change. His broke out of his old skin and became a flying bug.

Me: That’s good.

Ron: No, because he had to leave the pond and fly around above it. And he struggled to learn how to fly and was worried all the time, trying to escape the bigger bugs and birds of the air that wanted to eat him.

Me: Aw, poor guy.

Ron: Time went by and he became bigger and stronger. Then, just when he gained a ton of confidence and could zoom around with his wings, he hit the window shield of a car.

Me (serious): Splat. He died.

Ron (serious): Yeah.

Ron (laughing): I remember that story. It was a Non Sequitur cartoon. I cut it out, I may still have it, I loved that cartoon. The last frame had the drawing of the bug against the window shield. Big, smooshed-up eyes against the window shield. He just looked so funny.

Me (laughing): That’s so life.

Ron: Isn’t it?

Later, under the covers, one awake, one asleep.

Ron: Zzzzzzzz

Me: See, my love? There’s so much I don’t know about you.