While he waited for the shop to open, he sat on the curb and drank a cup of tea. Something on the sidewalk caught his attention: a praying mantis. He’d never seen one before. The light green bug, its front-most legs together, looking like praying hands, stood balancing itself against the ground breezes. It appeared ready to fly off, yet it waited, as if not sure how to proceed.

            Its movements were so small as to be nearly imperceptible. Still, it managed to come closer to a thick black tar line across the sidewalk. Martin watched the bug so intently he didn’t see the bicyclist coming until the wheel was nearly level with the bug. Before Martin could utter a sound, the front wheel rolled over the bug, pinning its head to the cement.

            Martin watched its wings flutter as if in pain, with stuttering attempts to flutter that seemed a dance of death. Martin could imagine the pain screaming through the tiny bug, and wondered how long it would be in its death throes. He watched, hoping the little bug wouldn’t suffer much. It moved in a circle around that pinpoint that was now its head stuck to the ground.

            But death did not come. As Martin watched, the determined bug managed to get his head unstuck from the cement, and gradually regained an upright posture. It stretched itself like a rubber cartoon character, and then stood unsteadily, taking tentative sideways steps to cross over the tar strip that the breeze and its efforts to stand had moved it toward.

            The shop finally opened, and Martin stood. As he did so, a woman approached the shop, and without noticing it, crushed the praying mantis as she passed. Martin wanted to scream. He had debated about killing the bug after the bicycle had run it down, not knowing whether to put the insect out of its misery or wait to see if it lived. He’d had little hope that the bug would live, but a sense of relief and triumph had suffused the young man when the bug finally regained itself. To see its life snuffed out so suddenly after all of its efforts to live made him angry at the carelessness of everyday acts.

 He wondered how many creatures he’d consigned to the grave by just such an ordinary act. He didn’t feel much pity for ants or mosquitoes, but to watch something larger make such a struggle gave him pause. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the man on the bicycle had simply killed the praying mantis outright. The valiant struggle became meaningless in light of the fact that it had only prolonged the bug’s life for a few painful moments of suffering.

Life, Zen, whatever it might be taught no lessons but cruelty. Tread softly through life, he thought. Perhaps that could be his mantra for today, at least. He stood, and entered the shop for a haircut.