The Day of the Water Spiders

On the hot day in summer, water spiders dance on a reflection
of the sun in a stream, searching for even more heat.

Hot, humid summer days that are miserable for humans might make for a joyful dance for some of nature's creatures.

Take a look at this photo taken on one of the hottest days of the year, one of the worst days for a man.

Sometimes, on awful days like this one, I'm surprised I can even press the shutter button of my camera.

It's that hot, and I'm that old and the air is that thick.

But for the water spiders that have just hatched, this is a day for a dance on the sun. It's as though they couldn't get enough heat and sought relief from the cooling water in its reflection.

For them, the sun is a magical source of life.

Maybe not so much for us anymore.

They needed to get as close as possible to it, pirouette on it, spin, dash and rush across the surface in what appeared to be insect madness to an old fogey like me who could barely put one foot in front of the other on this morning when the air seemed reluctant to let me pass through.

It was a day for water spiders, and it scared me.

It got me thinking. What if all the days in the future would be days tailored only for water spiders? What if the air would continue to thicken and heat until mere strolling through summer became impossible for a human being? What if this water spiders' dance signaled the end of me and my kind?

What if the water spiders took over because we destroyed ourselves by heating the planet?

We're making the earth weird for ourselves. Previously, it was our home. We knew the sun would rise, the air would flow into us and the night would darken and cool and give us sleep. We took all these things for granted.

Now maybe the water spiders were telling us something by dancing on the sun joyfully.

Their day is coming.

Maybe the time will come when they are the only ones who can do such a thing. Maybe the day will come when we dread the sunrise, we see the air as a burning a vapor in our lungs and experience nights fries us to a crisp as we try to sleep, remembering only its once-cooling embrace.

The water spiders are talking to us, I think.

They might even be laughing.