Last evening
a big, mean, ugly hornet
got stuck in the screen porch
while R-kids and I
were eating our dinner
out there.
He didn’t like it
any more than
we did.
In his frantic banging
against the screens,
he continually came
within inches
of the door I had flung wide open
for him.
Oblivious to it.
Until, finally,
he got himself even
more stuck.
In our resident spider web.
For a while, we sat
entranced.
Watching the drama unfold.
The huge hornet
twisted and lurched and
struggled,
feverishly trying to break free
from his
sticky prison.
Meanwhile,
a tiny red spider,
presumably the owner
of the establishment,
calmly ventured close to
and then away from
and then close again to his
enormous prey.
What was he doing?
Spinning more web?
Asking the hornet to
please leave?
Taunting?
Eventually
the hornet freed his body,
but his legs and antennae were still
tangled
in a few measly strands of web,
keeping him trapped.
Wearing him out.
I went to the kitchen and grabbed a glass.
Walked up to the hornet,
asked the furiously angry guy to kindly
not attack me,
and trapped him
in the glass.
Then I slid a piece of junk mail
over the opening,
carried the whole contraption outside,
tossed it all down in the grass,
and ran
back into the screen porch.
Slamming the door behind me.
We watched again.
And as I stood there,
seeing that still-oblivious and
ever-more-frantic hornet
bang himself
against the bottom of the glass
not even noticing the gaping hole of freedom
on the other end
I realized.
That hornet probably hates me.
He is probably wondering
how I could be so heartless
and cruel.
Trapping him in a tiny little jar
and leaving him
to starve and die
right at the very moment
when he most needed
rescuing.
And I’m just saying.
I’ve had thoughts
like those
before.
And today
it makes me
wonder…
by julie rybarczyk
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