Killer Instinct

I can't kill anything anymore. First there was that coqui frog in my kitchen. Then yesterday I was pulling major weeds in the lava park in the front of our acre of paradise and came across a Giant African snail. This find is not surprising; these critters are all over my yard. They would eat every shred of greens I grow in my little vege garden if I didn't surround each plant with a mountain of snail bait. When I lived in San Francisco normal-sized snails plagued my yellow roses, and I took great pleasure in pouring salt into their shells and watching them shrivel and sizzle. Here on our acre of paradise I killed one huge Giant African snail with a shell about 8 inches long! I saved the shell; it's perched artistically on a rock in my backdoor- pathway garden. Then I started finding so many of them (but none larger than the one whose shell I saved) that I began throwing them as hard as I could against lava, gleefully shattering the shell and dooming the slimy creature to par-boil in the sun. But yesterday I found myself inexplicably tossing the found Giants across the dirt road to sanctuary in the bushy untended jungle growth. 

Then I thought about the spiny lobster. Several years ago Brad and I hiked out to the green sand beach near South Point. We climbed down the sparkling cliffs and snorkeled, following the rocky coastline and diving under large rock overhangs. Brad lured and muscled a medium-sized spiny lobster out of one of the caves. The lobster's long feelers were broken off during the struggle. When Brad finally had the big bug firmly in hand and we were snorkeling back to shore with our lunch, I heard it. The lobster was screaming. I will never forget that sound. It was the same high-pitched sound I have heard when a human screams in excruciating pain ....an over-the-top, beyond-control sounding scream. At the time I marveled that lobsters cam make any sound at all, and then Brad and I killed and ate our delicious catch. End of story, no lingering regrets about killing the lobster. Until this morning. In my memory the details of the idyllic day fade. But the scream remains undiluted and I vividly recall the pain and terror in that bug's dying cry. Strange how memory works.

Then last night there was the fly. We are attracting many more flies than we used to, all loitering near the backdoor waiting for a chance to get inside. Brad says it's because the neighbor behind us has started raising Hawaiian/Ferrel pigs. He has enclosed an area right up against the back border of our acre, as far away from his own house as he can possibly get. I don't blame the pigs. I hung a curtain inside the back door because there are large gaps between the screen door and frame and I figured a curtain might help fill those gaps and deter the flies. It helped a little. Brad and I keep the fly swatter handy when we are eating, and later, when we are watching TV, the damn things fly around randomly and buzz us every five minutes, which is very annoying. Like I said, we keep the fly swatter handy. Last night I swatted a fly on the arm of my TV-watching chair and only winged it I guess because, later, I found it had fallen onto my chair and was trying to fly away on one wing, tickling my leg in the process. I picked it up with the edge of the fly swatter and found myself opening the front door and tossing the bug outside. I knew it wouldn't survive long. I just couldn't kill it.

This morning I mused, as I washed dishes and looked out the kitchen window, that it would be preferable not to kill the flies, and, instead, just escort them back out the backdoor. If only the flies would cooperate. A fly buzzed me just then, and I talked out loud to it as I opened the door, telling the bug I could not allow flies in my kitchen and that, if it valued it's life, it needed to leave my house. The damn thing buzzed my face and flew out the door.

So I am asking myself what's the meaning of these recent events? Then myself responds: What is is. I'm still reading the Tao every morning. I would still eat a spiny lobster given the opportunity, and savor every morsel. I haven't seen another fly in the house so far.