Dead Right?

I was about to leave my family home this morning when I spotted a daddy-long-legs (crane fly) moving on the spare bed in my childhood bedroom. I’d first seen it on Saturday night. Half of its legs lay a couple of inches away from its body. I’d presumed it dead. But it had been suffering there for at least two days. I agonised over what to do.

The humane option would be to kill it, I thought. But why should I have the power to decide to end its life? If I lost a leg, I’d still have the will to live. I’d still have hope for my survival. But there were no other daddy-long-legs rushing to its rescue and there were no daddy-long-leg hospitals that I knew of. It would be easier to simply leave it there but who knew how long it would remain in pain before it eventually died. It was all alone. I brought my face close and inspected it. Did it have a chance? “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Lots of people don’t think twice about killing healthy insects. Mosquitoes, ants, even spiders. But I didn’t want to kill any living creature. Was that selfish of me? I would allow it to continue to writhe there because I didn’t want to feel bad. I was going to feel bad either way. If I believed in reincarnation, the daddy-long-legs wouldn’t die as such, it would simply move on to the next part of its journey. Maybe it would come back as something much better than a daddy-long-legs. Then again, who am I to judge what a good incarnation is? Oftentimes, being a human is so complicated that maybe living as a daddy-long-legs would be a relief.

I probably shouldn’t interfere with its fate, I pondered. Perhaps I could throw it out the window, let it back outdoors where it belonged. Although if I had just had my leg amputated, being thrown from a two-storey building would be my very last preference. If I squished it, would that be a sin? Surely not if I believed I was doing the right thing.

Eventually, I scooped it up in a piece of tissue and killed it. It was difficult but, once I decided to do it, I did it quick. I brought it to the bathroom, flushed it down the toilet, then sat on the edge of the bath and cried. I have no idea if I made the correct choice. I’m sorry, little guy. I really am.

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