Dragonflies are beautiful when you're outside. I love being on the water and seeing them whiz by. Right now, I'm not sitting in my usual spot. Why not? There's a dragonfly on my sofa. Inside the house, it seems huge.
I first heard it, but had no idea what it was. I thought there was an electrical short in the kitchen. I got up to look, rather alarmed. There were no sparks. What was going on?
My cat was in a corner, twitching her tail, her eyes trained on something I could not see myself. Then the dragonfly swooped into the living room. I'd just watched a show about a giant insect. I could nearly have been that. Really, these creatures don't belong inside one's house.
I turned on the light near the door to the outside world, but the creature (I mean dragonfly) will not budge from the sofa. The cat came into the room, keeping her eyes on it, and now is sitting right next to it. She is not trying to play with it, eat it, kill it, or anything like that. She is alternating between just looking at it quizzically and closing her eyes into slits as cats do when they are most satisfied.
She just sniffed it, and went back to just sitting next to the thing.
I am quizzical myself.
It just took flight. The door is open, but this house has some twists and turns and many corners to get stuck in.
I put the hood up on my sweatshirt. I paused a moment before typing that. It's absurd, but I don't want the dragonfly to land on my head. Perhaps what stopped the cat from trying to kill it is the same thing that caused me to cover my head; the tail of the elegant dragonfly, up close, is nearly reptilian. I know they're harmless, but I can't convince my brain that this is so.
But what about the cat? I realize that I've seen her try to kill a snake. What was going on here tonight between cat and dragonfly?
I have no idea. All I know is that I need to end this here, even though this episode is not over. I'm afraid it will end with me finding a dead dragonfly in the morning, but we'll see. . .
Photo note: Behold the frightening environs from which the creature emerged.
2 comments:
Funny, we kids in the Bronx were also afraid of dragonflies. We called them "darning needles" and thought their tails were gigantic stingers.
In case anyone wants to know, I didn't see the dragonfly the next morning. Then, when it got nearly dark, I heard the sound once again. I found it banging itself against the corner of a window in a room far from the door. Dick caught it very gently and released it outside. Hurrah!
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