(Author’s note: A local gallery asked our writer’s group to pick pieces being shown in September for which to write something. I chose a water color of a group of ladybugs all facing each other in a circle – by Ellie Morgan, and titled: Ladybug Picnic)
The picnic had been declared a success.
Mrs. Redwing was proud of her picnic. A crumb of scone sat beneath a clover leaf. Drops of raspberry jam gleamed like rubies on the small stones used as plates. And a dark, stout tea had been collected into seed shells.
Several ladybugs occupied themselves with all the dignity of a country assembly, taking refreshment and exchanging the latest gossip and grievances.
Lady Beatrice Bugwell sighed. “I assure you, Mrs. Redwing, the condition of our species grows more intolerable by the day.”
Mrs. Redwing dabbed her mouth with a petal, feeling surprised. “You astonish me. I should have thought matters couldn’t be worse.”
“La. They can, and they have. Why, only yesterday I was enjoying a perfectly respectable climb up a rose stem when a child seized me.”
A collective gasp arose from the assembled ladies.
“Seized you?” cried Miss Dottingham. “Oh, my poor nerves.”
“Yes, indeed. Pinched between finger and thumb and held aloft as though I were a decorative trinket. I was turned over repeatedly and subjected to comments regarding my spots.”
“Monstrous.”
“That is beyond the pale,” agreed Mrs. Redwing.
Lady Beatrice nodded gravely. “And after all that indignity, I was deposited upon a windowsill and instructed to ‘be free.’“
“The arrogance!” Miss Dottingham exclaimed, shuddering. “They imprison us, interrogate us, and then have the indecency to congratulate themselves for releasing us.”
“Indeed,” said Lady Beatrice. “As though liberation could erase the insult.”
At that moment Colonel Spotsworth landed beside the group. “What a capital day, ladies.”
“Colonel.”
His expression grew dark. “However, it grieves me immensely to say that I bring troubling news from the garden path.”
The gathering fell silent.
“What has happened?” asked Mrs. Redwing, greatly astonished.
“My cousin Sir Crawlings, a most agreeable fellow if ever I knew one, was stepped upon this very morning.”
Everyone bowed their heads.
Several ladies murmured prayers.
“And the human?” whispered Miss Dottingham.
“Never noticed him.”
A terrible silence descended.
“I confess,” said Lady Beatrice at last, “that is what wounds me most. If they disliked us, I could understand it. If we were rivals in commerce, perhaps, or fighting for land too. But to be crushed through mere inattention…”
“Quite,” said Mrs. Redwing. “One can scarcely defend oneself against indifference.”
The company nodded in solemn agreement.
A young ladybug named Charlotte fluttered her delicate wings. “I occasionally wonder what crimes our ancestors committed.”
“What do you mean?” asked the Colonel.
“Well, birds eat us. Humans grab us. Children collect us. Windows imprison us. Surely, we are enduring some hereditary punishment or bad karma.”
Lady Beatrice considered this. “Or perhaps,” she said, “it’s simply the fate of being very small in a world occupied by creatures who assume everything exists for their convenience.”
The others reflected upon this melancholy philosophy, though it seemed better suited to poetry than conversation. Mrs. Redwing wondered briefly on the propriety of such a comment, but then, Charlotte was a young ladybug, and not yet out.
Miss Dottingham brightened. “At least they think us pretty and charming.”
“That is hardly compensation,” said Mrs. Redwing.
“No?”
“Certainly not. I would much rather be considered not a beauty, dull as sand, and left entirely alone.”
All the picnic attendees but Charlotte erupted in unanimous agreement.
“Hear, hear.”
“Quite right.”
“Perfectly sensible.”
Lady Beatrice raised her tiny teacup fashioned from a seed shell. “To ladybugs.”
“To ladybugs.”
“May we avoid fingers, shoes, jars, windows, and all other instruments of human affection.”
The toast was received with considerable enthusiasm.
And for one splendid afternoon, hidden beneath the clover, Mrs. Redwing was certain that every ladybug present agreed that civilization itself would improve tremendously if humans would simply learn to mind their own enormous business.
I asked Midjouney to produce a ladybug with tea that was dressed in a Jane Austen era hat and dress, and it gave me this:
