Terrible beauty.

On my way home from work yesterday, I spotted a huge monarch butterfly sitting on the grass beside the sidewalk, so I stooped down low and picked it up. The wings, spread out, made the butterfly bigger than the palm of my hand (excluding fingers). I put it on my hand, on my middle finger, actually. Impressed some little kiddies. Unfortunately, the thing was already dead, but properly positioned, it looked so alive. Then, while i was contemplating sticking a pin and thread (dental floss) through this baby, and hanging it in my window, out of nowhere, an image of a fly laying eggs on a dead butterfly popped into my head. I then envisioned this beautiful work of nature crackling with maggots, hanging in my window. I put the dead butterfly down on a concrete railing, for someone else to enjoy. I'm not jumping around my apartment with a flyswatter, chasing flies.

Closer to my apartment, I spotted a sparrow's egg on the ground. It had fallen from the nest, and was still intact. I thought about how good sparrow's eggs taste in my instant noodles, but then another disturbing image popped into my head. I envisioned cracking open this egg in my soup base, and watching a wet unborn sparrow-fetus falling into my noodles - downy feathers and all. Wonderful. Tastes like chicken, right? No, I think I'll leave this egg where I found it.

At about 1 am, I was awoken by the loudest thunder I'd ever heard in my life. It was terrifying - not that I'm afraid of thunder - just that it's not pleasant to be awoken in such a fashion. It was like waking from a nightmare. My apartment was actually shaking, trembling, from the intensity of the thunder. At one point, the storm was directly overhead and lightning coincided with thunder. My building got hit, and I could hear the ambient hum of everything electronic whine and die. In that brief moment of silence, I realized how noisy electronic stuff is - my fridge, my A/C, my alarm clock radio, the ventilation system of the next building, the lights in the parking lot... it all has a cumulative hum that we just tune out. Anyway, as the storm passed, the thunder took on a curious quality that I can only compare with the sound of high velocity shells flying overhead - anti tank rounds, artillery rounds, and the such. Of course, I realized, the lightning isn't just what we see, the part the connects earth and cloud, but can also travel through the 30,000 ft high or so mass of clouds, that we can't see. You can hear lightning travel. Needless to say, I was forced to stay awake and watch that storm pass, because I couldn't risk the power going out again after I'd fallen asleep. I need my alarm clock to work, right?

-d