Kenichi Takanaka “Blast off! Captain Pete Deluxe”

“Late in the morning, I went out to scatter grass for the goats when I heard a buzzing overhead. Looking up, I saw three jewel beetles! They spiraled around one another, as if entwined in an intimate dance, their metallic green and red bodies catching the sunlight as they climbed ever higher into the deep blue summer sky before splitting apart—north, west, and south—disappearing from view.

I spend most of the summer at the potter’s wheel, so stepping outside is a rare event. At best, I might see only one jewel beetle in an entire year. Some years I don’t see any at all. So to see three at once was a first for me, and I was deeply moved.

No matter how often I see them, jewel beetles are truly mesmerizing. Their shimmering metallic hues and softly oval, spikeless bodies create a harmony that never fails to astonish me. I sometimes encounter other metallic insects, but only the jewel beetle awakens a special, almost indescribable feeling in me.

It makes sense that people in the past adorned miniature Buddhist shrines with jewel beetle wings—it must have been breathtakingly beautiful (though on surviving examples, only faint traces of the wings remain). And yet, that so many jewel beetles were killed just for decoration… well, people in those days were certainly full of vigor.

Buzzing with excitement, I stepped back into the house. At the table by the hearth, my wife sat over the ledger, struggling with double-entry bookkeeping. Excitedly, I said,
“I saw three jewel beetles!”

She lifted her face from the ledger, stared at me steadily, expressionless, and said in a flat voice,
“Dear, you’re probably going to die soon.”

Splat!

Talk about killing the mood. Or so I thought. But then again, who can say? The words I’m carefully writing now are set to appear in something by Arts & Science around the middle of next month, and by then it’s entirely possible I may no longer be in this world.

And so everyone—sayonara.”

― Kenichi Takanaka