I think I just witnessed an insect suicide.

Every night, as I work on my computer — yes, work — out of the corner of my eye, I watch this tiny football-shaped bug crawl up the wall. He comes out at the same time, about 2 a.m., and at the same location, right behind my pen and pencil holder (for the sake of this story, let’s assume it’s the same bug). I’ve been known to go to extremes — busting lamps, hurling shoes, spraying Lysol, jumping up and down like a man on fire — to kill an insect. If he was one of those creepy-crawlies with a thousand hair-like legs, he would have been bug paste long ago. But he’s small enough and harmless enough that I leave him alone. In his persistence and consistency, he’s rather endearing. All of this makes tonight’s event so much more tragic. About an hour ago, I watched him again trudging up my wall, toward the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” movie poster. All seemed right — then, without warning, he plunged to his death*. It truly looked like he leaped, as he kind of suddenly popped off the wall by about an inch, hurtling to the doom below. Bugs, in my experience, usually have sure footing, so I must call this what it is: an insecticide. Let it be known to the bug population that this is one insect death in my apartment that I had nothing to do with — whatever mental anguish afflicted upon him by the things he witnessed in my room notwithstanding, of course.

(* I say this really for dramatic effect. Bugs, in my experience, are pretty resilient, and tomorrow night I might see my tiny roommate again. God willing.)