The crane fly and existential dread.

When I volunteered at a suicide hotline (always thought hotline was a terrible choice of word) they asked me what I thought my faults were. I told them I was compassionate to a fault.

I have proven this today by spending twenty minutes sitting with a dying crane fly. It had lost a leg and wriggled pointlessly trying to collect it, while I sat on the floor near it, thinking about if I should kill it or not.

Some people may have just stamped on it there and then; but not me.

I was the kid who bought home injured birds and insects, attempted to nurse them back to health (but more than likely killed them with my ‘love’) and set them free (when they weren’t dead.) I had a shelf full of ugly teddies because ugly things still had feelings (right?) and countless odd socks I couldn’t get rid of because they might feel abandoned.

So, five minutes in I thought, maybe the crane fly- let’s call him George. Maybe George would like a gentle breeze.

GEORGE DID NOT LIKE A GENTLE BREEZE.

…Maybe George would feel more comfortable in the dark? So I placed some toilet paper over his decapitated body.

NO, GEORGE DID NOT ENJOY THIS.

Ten minutes in to our long goodbye, I realised me being sat there wouldn’t change the inevitability of George’s death. Me sitting there with George wouldn’t change the inevitability of me dying, or anyone else.

Then I was sad.

I didn’t want George to feel my sadness and his last moments to be spent in a bubble of my negative emotion so I tried to think about happy things.

Sunsets, clouds, rainbows, bulrushes…

Then I thought about what George might have seen in his short life and for a few short moments I was void of any dread or sadness.