Free Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings by Kuzhali Manickavel Page A

think she will be able to fold the Entomologist that far. Even if she does she has a feeling he will break the bottle.
    “I really don’t think he will fit,” she says.
    “Nobody fits into a killing jar,” says the Cobweb Butterfly. “They have to be put .”
    The rain begins to pound into Malar’s skull like a shower of gravel. She wonders if she will catch a cold.
    “Well good luck,” says the Shoe Brush Butterfly. “Good luck from both of us.”
    The butterflies dip and soar into the thunderstorm like tiny slips of paper.
    •
     
    The Entomologist cuts a wobbly diagonal with his toes—sometimes an arc, sometimes a line. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to be moving at all. Malar looks at his bloodied eyes and marvels that the ceiling fan didn’t break.
    Before hanging himself the Entomologist smashed every single one of his butterfly specimen boxes. Malar thinks he probably threw them on the floor, one by one. Or maybe he put his foot through them. She is not sure if he crushed the butterflies himself or whether they simply fell apart once the glass was broken. She finds a few specimen tags; Gossamer-Winged Butterfly, Brush-Footed Butterfly, Skipper Butterfly. She irons them out with her hand and places them on the table in alphabetical order.
    Malar watches the Entomologist swing back and forth and tells herself that some people are like accidents. They are like sprained ankles and stains—they just happen.
    “I am a saint and a blessing,” Malar says and the words squirm inside her mouth like dying fish.

 
     

     
     
     
    Every morning I have breakfast with Annie. Annie doesn’t like me but she insists we have our meals together because there is no one else here. All the normal people have gone home for the study holidays. The only ones left are the slackers and the poor students.
    “Why are you still here?” I asked her one evening at tea. “You don’t look poor to me.”
    “Why are you still here? Don’t tell me you’re planning on studying.” She collapsed into a string of laughter that sounded like it was being hacked to pieces.
    “Why would I do that?” I asked.
    “That’s what I meant. That’s what I was trying to say.”
    Annie’s laughter suddenly fell away and she sat staring at the table, her mouth angled awkwardly on her face.
    This morning we’re having bread—large, sticky loaves of sweet bakery bread with watery jam and silver cubes of butter. Above the food counter is a picture of Jesus Christ which is in a perennial state of almost falling over.
    “Won’t you get in trouble if you fail?” says Annie.
    “Why are you so sure I’m going to fail?”
    “Because you’re not studying.”
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    Annie frowned and tapped the table thoughtfully.
    “You should memorize quotes on success,” she says. “They will keep you focused on your goals. Like this one: They can because they think they can. ”
    “They can what? Who are you talking about?”
    “If you had a good quote, maybe you would take your studies a little more seriously.”
    “How about Jam That Bread of Life ?”
    “What?”
    “It’s on the bottom of that Jesus picture. See?”
    “That says I Am That Bread of Life.”
    “No it doesn’t.”
    “Yes it does.”
    I pick apart the bread until I have a small, sticky mountain of crumbs. I think of giving this to the birds but there are no birds here. There are abnormally large red beetles that keep dying in the sun but no birds.
    •
     
    After breakfast, I start writing my Letter of Explanation to T.S. Eliot. I have already written one to Philip Larkin and I have made a paper tree for Samuel Beckett because I feel he would appreciate the tree more than the explanation. I have also written a note on the power of positive thinking for Sylvia Plath. I pull out a piece of yellow paper and a black fountain pen.
Dear Mr. Eliot,
I am writing to tell you that I am going to fail my paper on 20th century literature because I plan