The End of Entomological Aspiration

This was written for extra credit in my Insects and Human Society Class. It is mostly fiction.

My brother Joel began collecting insects as soon as he could capture them. He sought after every kind, but was especially fascinated by the beautiful and colorful ones. His packed his insectile assortment with vibrant and peculiar specimens, the sparkling filigree of the natural world.

Joel’s collection was more than doubled when a formerly insect-collecting uncle made Joel a gift of his insect collection. This one had masses of insects, all carefully pinned to a Styrofoam pad and organized in a neat cardboard box. Joel loved it. He even reorganized his collection of beauties with our uncle’s. There was only one goal in his mind: to collect insects like these forever. He set out to be an entomologist the day he first received this magnificent collection.

A little while after, a blazing summer day came, one in which our vegetable garden wilted as if in the throes of death itself. Joel, with water hose in hand, was rescuing our mother’s vegetables from certain scorching demise when he found something. It was a whopper of an addition to his insect museum; a gigantic, brilliantly green grasshopper. There was no trouble in catching it and it was soon pinned in his orderly collection. Joel’s collection reached critical mass that day, the addition of this magnificent insect was the beginning of the end of his entomological ambition.

To be frank, this insect was ugly. In all the ways an insect of Joel’s could be truly ugly and detestable, it was. It wouldn’t die. There is nothing less attractive to the collector of dead insects than a live insect, especially one which had the strength and motivation to wreak havoc inside a box of neatly organized, gorgeous miscellany.

Some say that Beauty is only skin deep, but I’m certain it is in the eye of the beholder. This wretched grasshopper had many eyes to behold the necropolis' many desiccated inhabitants, but it perceived no beauty in them. My brother’s collection of nature’s art was laid waste, every piece torn apart.

Joel kept but one specimen, the one insect that was left still whole. No box was needed, he pinned this verdant symbol of disaster to the cover of his insect guidebook. This minute pin nailed secured the cover permanently, and closed it forever. The destroyer of worlds couldn’t have done more harm to Joel's aspirations than this hideous grasshopper did. What once was vibrant and colorful was now pale and wizened, a symbol of the devastation of joy. Insects were no longer beautiful to him; they became uglier every time he looked at the cursed remnant of his collection.

Our joys are precious, and it is a terrible act to undo them. Every joy has a beginning, but sadly, some joys have ends.