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Thursday 22 May 2014

WordPress Daily Prompt: Mind Reader

Who’s the last person you saw before reading this prompt? Whether it’s a family member, a coworker, or a total stranger, write a post about what that person is thinking right now.



Rose Beetle on raspberries


This rose beetle was not the last thing I saw before reading the prompt, but almost. The last person I saw was Mr. Swiss. I do not have an open house, and people do not just drop in to see me. I seem to be a very unsociable person and am probably avoided. We are in Switzerland, so first of all an appointment is made and then guests will arrive. I am not expecting anyone today. My felines are taking their midday sleep which is usually a complete afternoon, so who am I left with. I would not want Mr. Swiss to start diving around in my mind and I would not attempt to do the same. Far too complicated and who knows what we might find. I am a retired golden oldie, have no coworkers, Mr. Swiss does his thing and I do mine, so let us return to the rose beetle who arrived just as I was finishing my midday meal on the porch.

Rose beetles are not really particular about where they live, and roses are not their only pollen meal: if it flowers, than eat it, seems to be the rose beetle motto. So there were Mr. Swiss and I finishing our meal consisting of spaghetti al tonno (spaghetti with tuna fish sauce) and a side salad in a special Angloswiss dressing with all the trimmings. Of course when I began to cook the sauce I had to make three small side dishes of tuna fish for the felines. They were all nicely sitting in a row with wide open eyes and watching every movement I made. I was under threat of feline attack if I forgot them.

To return to the rose beetle: rose beetles are not known for slow flapping movements with their wings, they are similar to a dive bomber in the second world war. They see what they want, take off and with the full weight of their scaly body they aim. I think they have sight problems and their aim is not always so exact. I had just finished my meal and was stunned by a collision of a rose beetle that missed his target and dived into my head. Having a hard head, she rebounded and arrived in the remains of the salad sauce. She was now a soggy struggling rose beetle and we immediately felt sorry for her.

I spooned her out of the sauce, but she was not happy. I laid her carefully on the ground, but she was still struggling with greasy, oily legs. I mean if you took a jump into an oil tank the effect would be similar. Mr. Swiss had a brain wave and emptied a small glass of water over the rose beetle. She was still struggling, but now to escape the shower and not to wipe the oil off her little beetle legs. After a while she began to stretch out her gossamer wings from underneath the shell. In the meanwhile I was searching in Internet for information about rose beetles and problems with suffocating in a salad sauce. I found nothing, but it said that they fly with their shell closed because their wings are just pushed out at the side. I was becoming an expert of the life of a rose beetle.

In the meanwhile I checked and found she had managed to walk quite a distance, not exactly breaking all speed records, but was aiming for the garden. Eventually she disappeared between some stones and has not been seen since. The photo is probably of today’s rose beetle’s ancestor, as it is from last year. I spent at least five minutes trying to coax today’s specimen to pose for the camera, but she was not too keen. I read that when they lay their eggs they die, so if she was pregnant, it made no difference anyway.

I still cast a glance at the stones, but she has disappeared forever: death caused by drowning in a salad sauce.

In the meanwhile Mr. Swiss has taken a walk along the river, probably thinking about tea time. My feline fluffy has marked his territory on the pampas grass, thinking what a relief and my other two felines are still deep in sleep and who knows what they are thinking, probably memories of today’s extra ration of tuna fish.


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