Pack Creek Ranch, Moab, Utah
Sunrise is at 8:00 a.m. now – 51 degrees at first light – clear skies.
THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE
“Write about what you know.” is the mandate for essay writers. What I know most about now is what’s in my bathroom. I’ve written about this before and will share an edited version of that because there’s nothing new to say.
Once again, the thing was there in the bottom of the sink this morning.
From what little I know about its species; it should not even be inside in the daylight. It’s supposed to be outside, in the dark, under the bark of a fallen tree, or a rock. It has my sympathy. All living things, me included, sometimes get confused and go astray.
So, it seems, this creature has.
Fortunately, the thing cannot attack me, for it is not a bug that can fly or leap. The sink bowl is slippery and has an overhanging lip.
I’m safe.
When I approach it, the creature senses my vibrations and feebly tries to climb out one more time.
It must be exhausted by now.
It doesn’t make it even halfway up the bowl before sliding back.
I admire its tenacious courage.
For just such occasions I have a coffee-cup-shaped magnifying glass I can drop over a creature and look at it closely without harming it or me. Under the glass, I see a startling, astonishing, enigmatic bug.
Translucent greeny-beige in color.
Two inches long.
An armored, segmented body, covered with spiky hairs.
And equipped with a total of eight leg-like appendages.
One pair adapted to serve as jaws, one pair as pincers, and four pairs for scuttling around.
Way out at the end of its body, at the very tip of the arched tail hanging over its torso, is a hypodermic needle loaded with venom that can kill human beings – me, for example. At its other end, on its face, are eight eyes. Everything about it says it’s dangerous.
A paranoid’s nightmare.
Imagine a tiny Special Forces Black Hawk helicopter.
All this insect needs are the wings and unique flight abilities of a dragonfly, and I would not stay in the same room with it trying to be an unprejudiced, sympathetic, thoughtful adult.
I would flee screaming out the door.
I bring my two eyes down close to the lens.
It stares back at me with its eight eyes.
From what my bug book says it cannot really see me.
Its main sensory organs are in its feet.
It knows I’m there by vibrations made by my body movements.
It tenses a bit in alert mode every time I breathe.
Furthermore, it really does not want to attack me.
It wants me to go away so it can try to go away.
Humans are not its usual prey.
If I don’t accidentally put my hand down on it, the creature will retreat and disappear – if it can.
Or . . . given its seemingly hopeless situation . . . die.
I’ve been purposely leading you on, dragging this out.
Come on. What is it?
If I had started out by using the insect’s common name, you probably would not have read this far. Your mind is probably already made up about it, and your attitude is likely not benevolent.
You may have guessed, anyhow.
The creature in the bottom of my bathroom sink is a scorpion.
Its tribe has been around for 450 million years at least.
And it has the unique property of glowing in the dark if you shine a black light on it. If you camp in the desert, you will not usually encounter one when you settle down in your sleeping bag for the night, but if you were to look around you with black light, you would find numerous scorpions nearby, glowing in the dark.
It would be easy to accidentally sit down on one or to flop your arm over on one while you sleep.
You might never go camping in the desert again.
And you would not be crazy to be afraid.
Because, yes, you can die or get very, very, very sick if one of the nastier species stings you.
That happens to hundreds of people every year.
Bad news.
I, a soft-hearted rescuer of living things, am not about to casually scoop up this thing from the sink with a sheet of paper and take it outside where it belongs.
While they don’t jump or fly, they can move like lightning when necessary – and my moves are way below lightning speed.
Never mind my Red Cross instincts.
I would need a Kevlar Haz-Mat suit or a remote-controlled demolition robot to get any closer to it than I am.
So, what to do?
I’m alone – nobody’s around.
It’s just me and the scorpion.
Nobody will know what I do.
It’s just another bug, anyhow.
I can turn on the hottest water and wash it down the drain.
Or smash it with a broom handle.
Tough luck, scorpion.
Adios, baby.
Be all that as it may . . .
Under the magnifying lens, I see such an incredible creature.
No less amazing for its small size than its distant relatives, the mega-dinosaurs I’ve seen in books and museums.
If this thing was as big as an alligator – and some were, once upon a time – it would be captured and put in a zoo, where it would scare the cookies out of all the school kids who would be field-tripped to see it.
But it’s so much smaller than I am.
So vulnerable there in the slick ceramic sink.
It’s in my power.
And its predicament is so familiar.
It is in the wrong place, at the wrong time, not knowing what to do next or how to get out of the mess it’s in.
I can relate.
I’ve been there – all too often.
While I ponder, I also wonder what it would be like if I glowed in the dark under black light, and why evolution provided scorpions with that ability and not us.
What if I glowed in the dark under black light?
It would make for really cool hide-and-seek games, don’t you think?
And what if scorpions were cat-sized like some other wild and dangerous things – cheetahs, for example – that you could tame and walk on a leash? Woah!
People and their dogs would give you lots of sidewalk space.
And the security possibilities are impressive.
Imagine the sign on the fence of your yard or on your apartment door:
BEWARE OF THE LARGE DEADLY SCORPION!
You’re right. I’m in avoidance mode.
I don’t want to deal with the creature in my sink.
Killing any living creature is against my sense of the sacredness of all life.
So, I left the bathroom and came out to my desk to write this.
And when I went back to look at it again and decide . . . it was gone.
Gone! How? Impossible!
Surely there was no escape.
But it’s definitely not there.
I’m amazed, impressed, nonplussed.
And now . . . it’s somewhere around . . . in the studio . . .
And, well, hell . . .
I knew where it was, now the tables were turned.
It probably knows where I am now.
Its special sensors tell it.
Over there . . . the big thing is over there . . . coming this way . . .
Is it really true what they say – that no good deed goes unpunished?
Am I going to be living proof – or possibly dead proof – of that?
Like all environmental issues, it all seemed so simple at first . . .
End of story?
Not . . . quite . . .
I revisited the bathroom sink to see if the scorpion had reappeared.
It had not.
Instead, there was a black spider there – almost as big as the scorpion.
Maybe it’s a tag-team deal – the spider is in for the scorpion.
When the big thing gets back . . . you go get him.
Or maybe the spider killed or ate the scorpion.
Scary.
What kind of spider?
I don’t want to know.
I don’t want to think about it.
I can’t handle this.
Being merciful is just way too demanding.
How can what seemed so simple become so complex?
I left the room.
God only knows what will be there the next time I look . . .
How small do cobras get?
The photo of my bathroom sink was supposed to show the scorpion and the spider. When I went back to take the picture, both were gone. Where? Somewhere else in my house. Oh, no, not this again . . .