The Beetle Whisperer

by Kelly Murashige

The first time she heard the buzz, she assumed it was tinnitus. Tinnitus or a leaf blowing across the lanai. The tinnitus came almost as frequently as the loneliness, neither of which she particularly appreciated. Both of which she had come to accept.

She therefore ignored it, comfortable on the love seat, curled up with her history textbook resting on one knee.

After three or four unmistakable buzzes, she closed her textbook, pulled herself up, and tugged the curtain aside. Holding her breath, she crouched behind the screen door. On the tile of the lanai was a beetle flat on its back, its spindly legs waving like false eyelashes in a breeze.

She frowned. She had never been much of a bug enthusiast. She smashed cockroaches out of necessity, but anything else left her screaming for her father.

She studied the beetle. Though larger than a cockroach, it hardly seemed threatening. It reminded her of a turtle stranded on the sand, staring up at a cold blue sky.

She straightened up and retreated into the apartment, then returned a minute later, armed with a disposable chopstick.

She held out the chopstick, all her muscles tensed. The beetle, whose motions had just begun to slow, desperately clung on, all six of its legs curling around the tapered end. Once she was sure it had a good enough grasp, she pushed herself to her feet and stepped over to the railing. She set the beetle on the ledge and stood back, one leg crossed over the other. It took a minute for the beetle to catch its breath. It was so still, she thought it had died.

Then, just when she was about to give up, it shot off like a bullet and disappeared like a wink.

The girl stood there for a while, her eyes on the sky. She expected to feel some sort of emptiness, a familiar woe is me. She had come to believe everything left her, in the end.

Instead, something in her began to come loose, as though a part of her had finally been freed.

Over the years, she saved every beetle she found. Her mother started calling her the Beetle Whisperer, the only one who heard the insects’ calls for help.

It delighted her. Being a savior. Even if the only things she ever rescued were bugs.

In her darkest moments, after failing to save just about everything else—friendships, relationships, her best friend from the drugs—she thought of those beetles. Of what she had saved. When she finally began dating again, her parents then regaled her partner with her beetle escapades, making her out to be a softie, deep down.

Once she and her new partner were finally alone, she said, “Let’s never speak of that again.”

“It’s sweet.”

“It’s stupid.”

“It makes me like you more.”

It was nice, everyone claimed, to know she was gentle. To find out there was still some kindness in the world.

She held onto that love. Held onto that hope. She wanted to be the person everyone thought she was. The person she could only sometimes be.

More years flew by. At some point, she realized she couldn’t recall the last time she had heard or seen a beetle. In her optimistic moments, she told herself this was good. She did not hear the beetles because they no longer fell. They had grown not to need her, evolving past helplessness.

Still, when she was lonely, and the real tinnitus crept in, she thought of the beetles. Remembered how it felt to hold out a shaking hand, help them back onto their feet, and watch as the creatures spread their wings and soared.

Then, one evening, following a Kona storm, she stepped out in rubber slippers to find a beetle on its back.

It was clearly dead. It likely had been for a while. It must have blown in with the wind and the rain. She imagined it in a puddle, floating aimlessly like an inner tube in a pool.

She stood there for a minute, her whole body numb.

She hadn’t saved it. It had died on her watch.

Her father, on his way to the kitchen, watched her come back inside. All these years later, she still lived with her parents. Her relationships, including that with the partner who had learned of her savior complex, had floundered worse than a bug in water.

“What happened?” her father asked.

 She pulled the curtain aside.

It took him a moment to identify the small creature on the lanai. Even once he had, he didn’t seem shaken by the sight.

“It was probably trying to eat my rosebuds,” he said.

The rosebuds had been a gift from the neighbors, a small potted plant they had taken indoors during the worst of the wind. Her father said the roses should have blossomed a while back, but for some reason, they hadn’t, their buds starting to dry.

“It wouldn’t have eaten your roses,” she said.

“How can you know?”

“I don’t. I just think…” She crossed her arms tightly, her lip caught between her teeth. “It wouldn’t have done that. If it had lived.”

Her father studied her, his soft little girl. Then, after a pause, he said, “Grab the spade.”

Out on the lanai, they buried the beetle in the dirt of the rose pot. They sat there together, both their heads bowed, knowing something beautiful would soon start to bloom.

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Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Kelly Murashige is the author of the award-winning YA novels THE LOST SOULS OF BENZAITEN and THE YOMIGAERI TUNNEL, as well as the upcoming adult novel MILKIVERSE (2027). Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. Though she can be shy, she loves obsessing over books, video games, and strange animals.