A crane fly is trapped inside. It’s in the window, having found the one place where movement happens indoors. Within the lethal box. It’s between the window and the screen. I test the screen to see how hard it is to open it … and release the crane fly. Too hard. Later, the crane fly has moved lower, where I can get at it. So I get a glass and gently, very carefully capture it, as I have done so many times in my life. It rages against the structure of the glass, which comprises an unimaginable prison. Eventually, it settles at the bottom, seemingly resigned to a world where a large prison becomes an even smaller one.

I take it outside and release it into the (mostly) still living world.

I feel a moment of happiness as it flies free.

And then…

… a pain rises in my heart.

No one came to release me from the box. I failed to find egress.

And now… it is too late.