It was a late summer afternoon and at the shopping plaza, three boys had just walked out from the convenient store. It was a hot day so instinctively they went in to buy some drinks. As they exited the store they stayed under the outlying roofs of the connected stores, walking along the sidewalk to avoid the piercing rays of the sun.
Suddenly a beetle called the attention of one of the three boys who called it to one of the others.
The second boy suggests to the first that he should just kill it.
One of the three that didn't notice immediately became entranced with the beetle after it had captured his attention, and while in deep focus he satisfied his thirst with the fountain drink he had just purchased.
***
In an attempt to show the second boy that he tried to kill the beetle, with a stomp of a foot he kills another insect nearby .
The first boy then begins again to try and kill the beetle.
Two, whose attention was brought to the beetle, couldn't believe that the One couldn't complete such a simple task. Then he tries himself and became a believer, stomps didn't work.
Two, who was the most creative amongst the three, told the others that they should trap it.
Three, briefly escaping, held out his see-through fountain cup with the lid as a suggestion; he was still entranced.
After a while the three boys eventually encircled the beetle with a moderate level of difficulty that seemed to be a bit much for the situation.
The beetle was now in the plastic cup.
***
Three now seemed to be fully out of the trance that left him speechless for the past couple moments.
He suggested to the others to leave a little bit of the cap open so the beetle could breathe.
There was silence…
For a moment it was as if all three boys had forgotten whatever purpose drove them to catch the beetle.
"Why?" ,said the one first brought to its attention, "we're just tryna kill it"
"Yea", replied Two.
"Oh yea" said Three, in a tone that remorsefully looks on a past thought.
"We should just drown it in the cup" suggests Three.
Two having a water bottle processed the idea with such swiftness it was as if he had a personal disagreement with the beetle.
Just as the suggestion had left Three's mouth, Two who seemed to be holding the cup with too excessive a force for the small creature contained within, swiftly and uncharacteristically with all the intenseness and seriousness he could, pours the water in the cup and quickly closes the lid.
After the beetle was captured and contained, it first attempted to crawl up the side to get out and after being set back by the cap it became still unlike the sporadic movement expected by an insect.
The cup now placed on the sidewalk was three fourths of the way full.
***
After Two poured the water and released his grip they became compelled to look at their handiwork and were now an arms length away from the cup.
As if focusing in a cloudy haze, they stared intently to see if by some means the beetle would survive or try to escape.
After a few moments the plastic cup starts to compress slowly, with a small amount of water pouring out the hole created for the straw.
Just as soon as it compressed it expanded and as if the cup itself was breathing in the water the plastic cup began to expand and contract feverishly, almost like a paper bag being used for anxiety.
Just as fast as the contraction and expansion had started, it it ended, at the tail end of a contraction. The plastic cup, now only a crumpled up third of its size, appeared as if something strange was occurring within the confined space. The beetle which was a small dark hue of blue almost to the point of purple now possessed the translucence of jellyfish, and in what seemed to be a slow metamorphosis turned into one.
The side of the cup begins to sizzle as a hole wide enough for water to escape is created.
***
Three, who had been entranced before had now been the most alert of the three and almost in horror ran back in to the store as the contraction and retraction of the cup began and had come back just as the beetle, now a small jellyfish, was making its retransformation into the beetle to crawl out of the now compromised structure of the cup.
It was now the other two boys' turn to be focused and almost as if they were hypnotized they stared not only at the transformation but the exit strategy employed by the beetle and looked on, almost paralyzed with shock and a small hint of fear.
"What was this?", they collectively thought.
Three hurriedly handed the first bottle of bug spray to the One and instinctively he knew what must be done.
For the events before, the boys scarcely looked at each other and on the exchange of hands for the insecticide this fact remained.
One then began to spray the now beetle-once-again, who seemed to be proportionally five times bigger than when it had been captured in the cup.
This growth which it accrued gradually was lost to the two boys in the midst of their intense focus during the contraction period.
Now with a conviction to rid the beetle from existence the One sprayed the beetle with such intensity and ferocity as if to will a bigger stream of insecticide out from the bottle. All this happened as the beetle made its first foray out of the side of the hole it had created.
All three boys watched aghast as the bright dark hue of blue almost purple exoskeleton of the beetle began to hastily, and in its now bigger proportion create a dramatic fashion, turning into a gray pasty outside. It began to crumble.
The three boys all at the same time decided they collectively had enough with the whole thing, especially with what seemed to be the final transformation of the beetle occurring, and not wanting to find out what happened, left.
The three tried to briskly walk away, which quickly turned into a much more rapid form of movement; failing to escape the trepidation of what other-worldly activity nature was about to give way to.