Well, one night, a cold, wet, and dingy October evening, I was showering to reheat my body/soul, and bring life back to my extremities, when I discovered a black lady bug crawling along the window sill of the little square port hole in the wall of the far side of the shower. It was a tiny little lady bug, black with big red spots and a shiny white head, which made a pattern like saddle shoes where it met his body. I was naturally unalarmed, having grown up with ladybugs in the garden. Ladybugs are legendary for their gentillesse, and I innocently made to pick it up and transfer it outside, as I had fond childhood memories of similar encounters. No sooner, however, than I'd touched its smooth back than it flipped out long, wet, fiendish wings, the likes of which I had never seen. They spiraled out of his back like a venomous tongue to lick my hand, and I in my fear, and shock saw the face of demon smiling at me from the back of this transformed, spotted bug. I hurraled it across the bath room and recoiled in disgust, and horror. Once the beast was free of my grasp, I regained some semblance of my senses and was able to master my mounting confusion. I bravely strolled forward and grasped the thing masquerading as ladybug, and opened the window to fling it out. When what to my astonished eyes should appear, but a whole nest of ladybugs crawling and writhing around the outer rim of the window, not less than 30! Well, I dropped that bug faster than superman on crack, slammed the window shut with every once of my strength and ran, stifling my urge to scream bloody murder, out of the bathroom, dripping wet and driven half mad with terror, to take shelter on top of my bed.
When at last I had calmed down a bit, I began to think about the ladybug, and its strange wings. I couldn't help but assure myself over and over again that, that thing wasn't, couldn't be a ladybug. I could think of only two possibilities, 1). French ladybugs are carnivorous, vicious things that attack people's houses like termites, hungry for fresh blood, instead of wood, or 2). That was no ladybug, that was an evil spirit sent to menace my innocent, wandering soul, by some angry god, or Pandora's box ,in the guise of our loving Coccinella septempunctata. Of course, neither of these seemed very likely to me, but I couldn't shake the image my half blind, and trusting eyes had conjured up, nor the sprit's face with the demon's wings. And when you add the discovery of his entire community, it was like a horror movie, I was hearing the Psycho theme song; I felt like Rosemary when she discovers her doctor is in on the whole thing. It was . . . an infestation. I think now I must have also been influenced by Jane Eyre in my quick leap to evil spirits, as I had just reached the part where the crazy wife lights the bed of her anguished husband on fire in the middle of the night, after harassing the unsuspecting Eyre out of spite and jealousy. Also I think the fact that I was so spooked had much to do with the fact that I have a particular thing about bugs coming near me while I'm showering, something about being wet, and encumbered by soap seems to engender vulnerability to attacks.
At any rate I was on the alert, and I did indeed continue to see lady bugs around the bathroom, and even some migrated to my adjacent bedroom. I kept away from them, never touching them, or bothering them. I figured I'd already violently expelled one from the warm sanctuary that my bathroom must present to them, in full view of their entire colony, the evil spirits must be mad, red hot mad, no need to anger them further. This continued for several months; each siting jolting me with fear, and superstition. Finally I decided that my blind ignorance in terms of evil spirits and ladybugs needed to illuminated, so I did what any clever and crafty being of the twenty-first century would, I googled...
to be continued
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