No. 1

 WHAT IT IS

On a whim, Sapphire and Cricket headed to Washington D.C. aboard an Amtrak train to hear a speech by Fred Singer, a prominent U.S. climate change denier. During a stopover in Beaver Falls, two scruffy men in bad suites boarded the train and sat across from Sapphire and Cricket, both clutching maniacally to manila file folders. Within thirty minutes of departure, the smooth swaying of the train and the rhythmic clacking of the wheels caused the men to fall asleep, the contents of their folders dropping to the floor.

Sapphire couldn’t help but look. The documents, labeled “INSECT-CLASSIFIED”, described the pictured insect as: “No. 1 Leader/Positively Identified by Field Agents Graham & Smith in London, Halifax, San Francisco, Beaver Falls, Wanapitie, Nevis Island and St. Louis.” The document further authorized a “squish without prejudice” order by the commissioner of INSECT, Melina Schulz.

Sapphire and Cricket  inspected the documents for a few moments. They had never heard of INSECT and were genuinely surprised to see their little village of Wanapitie listed with all the other places. As all this was sinking in, the two men began to move, and Sapphire hastily placed the folders back on their neighbours’ seats.

WHAT IT IS NOT

It was a warm afternoon, and Frank James was in one of his favourite places on earth: the Mark Twain National Forest. Walking along the edge of the Eleven Point National River, James came across this curious looking fellow among the shrubs at the river’s edge. As James approached, a wickedly huge widow maker broke off from a pine tree adjacent to him and crashed to the ground missing him by no less than a foot. As James collected himself from the near-death experience,  this curious little insect flew very close to him and in James’s words, “winked” at him.