"He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from him as if snuffed. His skin emptied and dropped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football. I watched the taunt, glistening skin of his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part to his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing. I gaped, bewildered and appalled....I had read about the giant water bug, but never seen one....It eats insects, tadpoles, fish, and frogs....It seizes its victims with these legs, hugs it tight, and paralyzes it with enzymes injected during a vicious bite. That one bite is the only bite it ever takes. Through the puncture shoot the poisons that dissolve the victim's muscles and bones and organs-all but the skin-and through it the giant water bug sucks out the victim's body, reduced to a juice. "[Tinker at Pilgrim Creek at 7-8]
Do you remember where you were when you first read Tinker at Pilgrim Creek by Annie Dillard? It was a spiritual revelation for me, a major step in my spiritual development.
2 comments:
Annie Dillard should not only be required reading in schools, everyone should be required to re-read all of her works once a year.
Since she's never written anything bad, it won't be a burden, only an enlightenment.
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