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Bug, Mr. Bug
Words to my roommates.
By Francisco Antonio Suing
[Fiction]
With a simple movement of my foot I can end your existence, Mr. Bug.
In this room I’m God. And you’re just a bug, Mr. Bug. You come out of your secret cave when nobody is around and there’s food on sight. You walk in circles again and again with no objective whatsoever. Pathetic. With your little legs, the biggest obstacle is what you have in front of your nose-if you have a nose-. Useless. You walk and walk and you never seem to find your way out of this room, this prison that you fell into and that you seem to worship. No real imagination. What can you do for the benefit of the world, Mr. Bug? I wonder every time I see your suffering, Mr. Bug. You hide from the elements of the world and wait for sunny days. I’d like to see you overcome your own limitations so you can be free. Mr. Bug, listen-or at least try-, there’s nothing like the feeling of being free outside of these four cold walls. A feeling you must have never experienced. Your life is shorter than mine, Mr. Bug. I see you are tired about being the same everyday, but also I see you enjoy what you are. Just an insect. Just an insignificant being before the eyes of the world. Even when I can be a God in this room, you can be more than your peers, more than the twisted figure you see in your dreams, more than the growing cancer you see in front of the mirror. I know you want to break free, that’s what you attempt everyday. To try to be someone or something you are not. And I enjoy seeing you fighting your own demons and limitations. Common, Mr. Bug. The eyes of the world shall see every movement of yours when you think nobody is watching you, but we are. We humans call it ‘dignity’, to do the right thing when nobody's watching, And even when you are just a simple bug, I know you can do better. At times, I can see myself within you. But that must be a mistake. For I am a complete human being. For I can shape words and destroy worlds. And what about you, Mr. Bug? The night is already upon us, and we shall welcome our darkness hour with open arms and loaded guns. The dramatic changes in the world shall shape our character and decisions. Common Mr. Bug, what about you? From east to west. From south to north. From heaven to hell and came back. That’s your playground. That’s your only path to follow until your insect-heart fails to support your impulses. I’d like to help you, but I’m a man of a thousand thoughts and few actions. You are Mr. Bug. You and your friends just crawl everyday to live another day. What am I supposed to say to the Gods once I met them about you, Mr. Bug? Perhaps that you were a good company in the moments of doubt and hesitation. That you were a friend in the moments of deep loneliness. Or that you were a kind of light during my darkest hour when nobody seems to offer a helping hand? That you and your friends were the only true interaction with the living world when I was captured as a prisoner by the divine chains of sin and the warm legs of lust? Mr. Bug, I can’t comprehend the reason behind your existence. What good do you bring to the world? What have you done to the benefit of those around you? What achievement have you conquered so I can say “I’m proud of Mr. Bug” with my dying breath? Nothing Mr. Bug, nothing. And you don’t seem to care either.
It breaks my human heart to step on you and shatter your life. It breaks my soul knowing I have the ability to feel compassion for an insignificant creature like you, Mr. Bug. I wonder if we have something in common once Death calls our names. I know these human words are for you. I’m here, and you below my feet, waiting for my mercy to let live another day. I wonder if I’ve lived something similar in past lives. And, yet, I envy you. For you only need simple things to be Mr. Bug. My life is as complex and difficult as I wanted to be. And the realization of my own limitations bring to pieces my human reason.
You can’t understand what it’s like to be a man. A man of motion, and a man of thoughts all in the same body. You are just you. Inside your rigid exoskeleton you live free from the cruelty of the outside world. Food and sex is everything you need and want. Well, I’m the same, but not the same. I spend my days counting the stars above the sky just to give my imagination something to eat. But your only focus is your duty and to die so others can live.
But wait, there’s another bug just like you. That’s adorable. With a simple movement of my foot I can end both of you, Mr. Bug. Two for the price of one. Yeah, I must be God down here. To what extent should I use my powers? Nobody thought about what I would do in these situations. Is this what happens when a man has too much power? Mr. Bug, what lies under the stars and inside the mind of a broken man? You’ve been roaming this room for a limited time. But I know you can live for eons to eternity. But I can’t. Either a bullet ends my days, or unfulfilled passions rot under my skin.
I’m tired, Mr bug, tired of pretending to talk to you. I’d like to be just like you. Simple and basic from the core to the tip of your legs. I see a world, a blue point in the history of the universe. I don’t know what you can see. I think about problems and how to make the same problems even worse. I don’t think you can create problems in your understanding. That’s why we are different. You act before you act. I think before I act. God help us before we unleash the forbidden Armageddon upon the helpless and innocent.
I’d like, but I can’t hide the atrocities I’ve done to your kind. My innocence disguised as ego pushed me to drive your kind to extinction. For good or for bad. Now I can’t remember what I’ve done before the eyes of the emperor. A song, a masterpiece, life itself. Mr. Bug, you probably know better than many of us. I do fear death. But death without a purpose above the last horizon. Mr. Bug, you and your simplicity is something to admire and to learn from. But this is something even I don’t seem to care about.
I wish you could understand me Mr. Bug, so I can ask you for the missing cogs in the machine of the universe. So I can listen to what you have to say about my rotten days and twisted desires nobody wants to deal with. You’ve been here before me and watched all I’ve done. You have seen how I’ve created beauty with my hands but also how I’ve brought destruction with my fists filled with wrath. But it doesn’t matter.
The sun is rising again and Mr. Bug crawls out of its cave. To try again. To fail again. To live again.
I salute Mr. Bug this morning. But this time Mr. Bug stops in front of me.
The vile alcohol in my blood shall tell you what happened next.
Silent whispers in the air reach my ears.
But wait, what did you say?
If true, then I am Mr. Bug.
God help us.
Almost the same, but in Spanish:
>>> El Buffet del Mapache
Dedicated to the countless little rectangular-shape bugs that crawl in this room from which I wrote “Bug, Mr. Bug”
P.S: It doesn’t matter if it’s outstanding, cheap or stupid fiction. Every story has deep roots in reality.