Here was a young woman. Isabella. Izzy. She crushed the red shell of a ladybug between her fingers. It was desiccated. She noticed how easily it crinkled into dust. She told herself this was an act of observance more than an act of destruction.
She scooped up the empty bodies of dried bugs from the windowsill, caked with dust. A fly, a spider, a bee. They trembled in her hand.
She let out a heavy breath and accidentally blew the creatures away onto the carpet. No, no! She said. She bent down to pick them up again.
She collected the dried things from around her mother’s Ranch-style house every few months, ever since her mother had been away in the hospital. Carefully, Izzy peeked at the iridescent wings of the fat bee, holding her breath inward this time. The house was silent but for a muffled hum of machinery coming from the bedroom—an oxygen concentrator she had prepped for her mother’s return.