Humor

Requiescat in Pace Leptoglossus Occidentalis

Dearly beloveds, we are gathered today to honor the life of this Leptoglossus Occidentalis (Lo for short), who was sadly found drowned in the toilet bowl of a second-floor apartment on Franklin Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Sunday, March 28, 2021.

Little is known about Lo other than an assumed lack of discernment regarding the character of water vs. land, their poor swimming skills, that their ancestors are native to western North America (most likely California), and that they have relatives living as far west as Tokyo and as far east as Croatia. We can attest, however, to the insuppressible will to live in the Schopenhauerian sense of this Leptoglossus Occidentalis. After being fished out of the toilet bowl and placed delicately on the window sill above the bathroom radiator, Lo moved an inch or two in the span of twelve hours, using only one hind leg, which resulted in their taking a westward path where they finally stopped, either due to exhaustion, death, or lack of interest.

We will never know if, in the throes of death, Lo was trying to make a pilgrimage to their ancestral home somewhere in the Redwoods of the Coastal Range where we imagine their cousins live safely away from plumbing.

Did Lo suffer? Did they “Rage against the dying of the light”? Or, were they stoic in the manner of Epictetus? Or was Lo a renunciate in the Buddhist sense?

Given the simplicity of their life style — living on tree sap and pine seeds, hence the common name Western Conifer Seed Bug — we believe this Leptoglossus, this true bug, as it were, was indeed Buddhist. And, unlike Dylan Thomas, went gently into that good night.

May they and their loved ones be at peace.