I’d find the bugs smashed against the wall, the brown liquid leaving streaks almost to the floor but not quite. It didn’t have enough juice to get to the bottom; instead, it stopped just above it. I’d figured someone would eventually clean it off, but the next day it was still there, and instead of listening to anything anyone had to say, I would look over and glance at the bug, everything unchanged about it. The next day more bugs had shown up, all smashed into the white paint. It must’ve hurt when they smashed their hand against the concrete. I wonder if they regretted anything about it—the bug dying or the pain that comes with slapping your hand across a wall. Every day I would walk in and greet the smashed bugs, surprised they still hadn’t been cleared. I mean, how easy would it have been to just get a rag and wipe it? But it stayed, and it’s been so long since I’ve been there, but I’m sure it’s probably still there.
And now I’m here, willing my tears not to fall from my eyes, and he still hasn’t stopped talking to me. I guess he doesn’t realize that I’d rather not, and sometimes I hate how he makes me feel. I want so much from him and at the same time wish I didn’t care. He keeps talking now to someone else, my throat tensing up, ready to let out a sob when I spot a bug on the wall, its body flattened, the brown leaking, and I remember all those bugs plastered on the wall from a time when my problems were different. And instead of thinking of him, I transport myself to when I’d look at the bugs.
The Junction Journal 
Hi Cat!
I really enjoyed reading your post. You tapped into something that I have dealt with before, which is this annoyance with how people treat a space that happens so often that you become indifferent to it. It made me think of my old job in a dishroom, where the boys I worked with would leave globs of ketchup or whatever other splattery condiments on the wall, and sometimes being angry about that was easier than dealing with whatever larger problem was going on in my life.
I especially like the line “I remember all those bugs plastered on the wall from a time when my problems were different”. The word choice of having “different” problems, rather than worse problems, is a subtle way to convey that just because the bugs on the wall might have been a less important problem, it was still a problem. It also gets at this longing we sometimes feel for a simpler time in our lives, when things that were really non-issues seemed super important. In hindsight we are often able to laugh at ourselves though, and maybe your character here will look back at whatever they are facing in that second paragraph and laugh too.
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Hello,
This post is really interesting to me because while the story is about bugs being smashed against the wall it also compares that to the little problems that people would get in their lives but would ignore, and that eventually piling up later for them to deal with. The main line that is interesting to me is “I remember all those bugs plastered on the wall from a time when my problems were different.” It shows that as time progressed, people tend to lose track of their problems that could have been easily fixed. They seem so small when they are there, but when it multiples with time, it could easily get overwhelming to the person. When they said “from a time when my problems were different.” That shows that these issues are easy to overlook, because your priorities would be different from time to time so you wouldn’t care for it now, but it will come back to bite you later. This is relatable to me because like I sometimes do overlook small problems, this was specifically prevalent during high school, where we were getting ready to transition to college. I passed things by saying stuff like “it’s probably not that important anyway.” But later I realized how big somethings can impact you later on in life.
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Hello,
I found this post really interesting as the line “I’d find the bugs smashed against the wall, the brown liquid leaving streaks almost to the floor but not quite.” was just something I didn’t expect to ever read. This line makes me think of how people use small things in life to distract yourself when things feel overwhelming. Where it feels like you are connecting old memories to what you’re feeling now, it makes the moment you are talking about feel heavier. Its also interesting on how you use the bugs on the wall as a way for your mind to go back to a time when things were different, even if they weren’t easier, just to avoid breaking down in the moment.
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Hi Cat,
I chose to read your blog post because of the title being bugs in all lowercase. It made me wonder if this was going to be about a dislike or like of bugs, but it ended up being something much more interesting than that. I love how you talked about a small problem that the majority of people don’t pay attention to or think about at all- about squashed bugs on the wall. The problem of the bugs remaining on the wall is something that stood out to you, remembered, thought about, and connected to a much bigger problem. I also find myself doing this with problems ongoing in my life and connecting it with much smaller seemingly insignificant memories, in an attempt to distract myself in the moment and just think about how different it is now to then, and also how similar they are. And it’s interesting how we can end up focusing on smaller things while being in an intense situation in the present, for whatever reason it is still helpful and gets us thinking. It’s like an escape. It’s nice to know someone thinks this way, or at least similarly, and so I felt deeply invested into your blog!
Also, what stood out to me was the abrupt transition into your current situation, and how it pushed me to think about how these two different things, the bugs on the wall and your situation, can be connected. There was something I saw similar was the beginning of your paragraphs:
“I’d find the bugs smashed against the wall, the brown liquid leaving streaks almost to the floor but not quite. It didn’t have enough juice to get to the bottom; instead, it stopped just above it”
“And now I’m here, willing my tears not to fall from my eyes…”
These two sounded similar to me in terms of their description. The brown liquid would stop right above it, and similarity, you tried to keep your tears from falling and hence the tears are also stopping right before it. I liked how this could be a comparison, intentional or not.
Again, I love this blog you’ve made. There wasn’t much context for the situation in the second paragraph, but I hope you’re doing alright. And I will be reading more of your posts!
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