Another Beetle Buddy

Another Beetle Buddy showed up the way small surprises usually do: quietly, and close to the ground.

On a worn slab of stone in Chicago, a beetle sat like a polished button dropped from someone’s pocket. Its back caught the light in a soft green that faded into coppery edges, the whole thing looking less like an insect and more like a tiny piece of metalwork left out in the weather.

I paused longer than I meant to. Cities teach you to keep moving, but there are moments when you can hear two worlds press up against each other—the steady, indifferent grain of concrete and stone, and the delicate insistence of something alive tracing its way across it.

I don’t know where it was headed. Maybe nowhere in particular. Maybe just away from the heat of the sidewalk, toward shade, toward a crack in the pavement that felt like shelter. Watching it made the street feel briefly quieter, as if the day had a slower rhythm underneath all the noise.

I took the photo and moved on, but the image lingered: a small companion on an ordinary surface, reminding me that even in the most familiar places, there’s still mystery if you stop and look.