after the storm
Somewhere on the other side of the world, a butterfly flapped its wings. This caused some air to be moved, which caused other air to be moved, and so on until eventually it caused a storm where I live. The storm was so strong that it spawned a tornado, damaging buildings and toppling trees that have lived for a century or more.
I discovered the wreckage when I got home. The pathway through the courtyard was littered with branches, so that you had to walk on the grass to get around. Seeing as it was now after five o'clock, and no maintenance workers were in sight, I decided to go out and clean up a bit after I put my groceries away. The maintenance workers showed up soon after I went back out, but I kept helping anyway as there was a lot of work to be done, and I had nothing else to do at that moment. But after a while, one of the property managers came out, and she said I had to stop helping, for liability reasons. I told her I figured she might say that. A strange world we live in, where you aren't allowed to help unless you're on the clock.
When I went inside I was soaked and dirty. When I looked in the bathroom mirror, I noticed there were many pieces of debris stuck to me, but one of them was not debris. It was a very small inchworm... a half-inchworm. Since it was still raining outside, I didn't feel like going back out, so I put it temporarily into a plastic container that I use to catch bugs that get in my apartment. I threw in some leaves from my houseplants and a piece of cooked kale from my fridge.
I never ended up going back outside that night, and since I saw that they needed volunteers on Belle Isle the next day to help clean up after the storm, I decided I would just take it with me and let it go there. The parking lot was full and there were many people milling about, so I decided again that I would wait until after I had finished working to let it go. There was a small air hole in the top and it had plenty of leaves and moisture, so I figured it would be fine for a couple more hours.
After hauling branches for a while, someone asked if there were more rakes, and I said there were, and I volunteered to walk back to the tent and grab a few. After retrieving the rakes, I stopped at my car to get my water bottle as well. When I opened the door, I noticed something crawling on my backpack. It was an inchworm. Was it the same one? It took some work, but eventually I was able to scoop it up after it fell to the floor and became wedged in a groove in the floor mat. I carried it to the nearest tree and wished it good luck. When I went back and opened the container, I turned over every leaf, and it was nowhere to be found. So it had escaped through the air hole, and if I hadn't gone back to my car at that moment I likely never would have found it.
If the inchworm lives, it will one day become a moth. What will happen when it beats its wings is anyone's guess. But it deserves the chance.
~
September 5th, 2026