Sowbug

This evening, I spotted a sowbug on my carpet. He wasn't moving and I worried I had stepped on him. I knelt down close and he started to wiggle his antennae and move a little. Bugs usually kind of freak me out, but I was relieved to see the little grey creature slowly poke his way around. My house is asleep and so I can't put him outside until morning without waking everyone up, so I decide to put him under a glass so he doesn't accidently wander underfoot or near my sister.

I want him to enjoy his stay, so I run upstairs to make him some snacks for the evening. A Google search for 'sowbug favourite food' mostly turns up fishing websites explaining what kind of fish like to eat sowbugs, and the most revelant information I can find is that sowbugs eat decaying organic matter. I was hoping to find some specifics - do they like a certain vegetable, for example - but I guess there's not too many other people out there who are looking to feed a sowbug their favourite food, which seems like an obvious realization but still makes me a little sad.

I collect a little plate of a wrinkly blueberry (I split it open for the sowbug's convenience), a piece of bell pepper (I meant to bite off a little piece for the sowbug but I absent-mindedly started chewing the whole slice, so the piece I got was a little slobbery but I figured it was ok), a bit of browning guacamole (closest thing to 'decaying' I could see in the fridge), and a couple drops of water on the plate in case he was thirsty. I ran back downstairs and looked around the area of carpet, but I couldn't see the dark sowbug-shaped spot. I turned on the brighter hallway light and I saw his pale grey underbelly laying on the carpet, legs curled in, unmoving. In the minute I had left, he had passed away.

I felt soft sadness in my throat as I held my little tasting plate. I don't know what it's like to be a sowbug, but I figured it would be nice to have an exciting new snack collection to explore before passing on. A tasting plate for a sowbug is already somewhat ridiculous, but it would feel even more so to wash a plate of untouched sowbug snacks down the drain just a moment after I made it. I watched my little friend, connected to him now, hoping for him to move. I thought I saw his antennae twitch, but it was 3am and I hallucinate slightly sometimes (I mean, I just made a snack platter for a sowbug, so mild pyschosis is kind of a given), so I figured I was just seeing things. Despite the doubt, I knelt down to look at the poor thing closer, and his antennae definitely moved. I looked up whether flipping over meant certain death for bugs - again, not an area that many people seem to have researched - but generally, it was said to be a step on the progression to death, which meant the sowbug could still have a chance.

I took a stiff piece of paper and tried to push the sowbug onto my plate as gently as I could. His antennae got a bit smushed and I thought it might be gentler to use my finger, but the curled-up legs were a little bit too much for me to touch. I flipped right-side-up, but he wasn't too responsive. I pushed the blueberry and pepper a bit closer to him, and still, he didn't really move. Even if he was on death's door, I figured I had done what I could to give him his snacks and hopefully a peaceful departure. I'm sure it was stressful for him to have me there, pushing him around, but I'm not sure he would have reached the snacks on his own if he had wanted them. Now, at least he has the option.

I checked on him a few minutes later and he still looked unresponsive. He's outside my room on his plate as I write this. I could check again, but it's Schrodinger's sowbug - he can be alive in my mind until I check and confirm that he has passed on.

This is a supremely weird take on your challenge, unlike anything I usually write, and entirely non-fiction, but I wanted to share my experience with my sowbug friend. Maybe 'friend' isn't the word - I mean, it's an elderly sowbug who doesn't know who or what I am and didn't (can't?) consent to any kind of friendship. I might have contributed to his early death by unknowingly stepping on him or excessively stressing him out. He may not be a 'he'. And I know I'm overly emotional tonight, but with all of that said, I care about the little guy. I couldn't touch him with my finger, but I really wanted him to try some new foods and pass away feeling content, happy, at peace, or however sowbugs experience postive emotions, if they do have such a thing. I don't know if my friend will be alive this evening to try his foods, or if he will feel happy or calm doing so, but I really hope he does.

Life is hard and sad and complex, and my brain is spinning with self-criticisms even as I write this. Do I think I'm better than other people for trying to feed a sowbug - am I a narcissist, attention-seeking by posting this on here? My mind chatters endlessly and relentlessly at all times of consciousness; the sowbug's mind probably does not. I'm not a sowbug, and I will never be (in this lifetime), but I feel as though tonight I caught a glimpse of the most basic simplicity of what it means to be living and interacting with the creatures around us. I met a sowbug as he neared the end of his life and tried to give him something to eat. Is that not the essence of everything? Is that not the meaning of life?