Saving A Slug

On the way to the coffee shop today, I saved a slug.

Well, I tried to. I don’t know exactly what will happen with that slug. It was in a pretty bad state.

I was walking along the sidewalk, on this sunny winter morning, and I happened to see, somehow, the trail, the slime trail, and then the tiny blob at the end. Quite miniscule, but I saw it, standing out on the otherwise monotonous, stark concrete sidewalk.

I knelt down, and took a look. What did we have? A slug, stranded, and desiccated. Dead? I waited, and I saw the head move. Not dead yet. But in a dire state. The body was shriveled, puckered, but the head, moving. There was still life there, if only for a few more minutes or hours. Surely, in the current state, the slug would die.

I wasn’t sure if I would squish it, if I tried to pick it up, but these were desperate circumstances. Seeing as the slug would die if I did nothing. I gently put my fingers around it, my index finger and thumb. The slug was solid, and so I lifted it up, and tucked it away in a patch of moist grass in the adjacent yard. Somewhere deep down in there, where the morning dew was still thick. Where there was moisture and protection.

I don’t know how much a slug can take. I don’t know if that will be enough to save it. But I tried. And after that small moment, I thought – IF that slug lives, well then, me deciding to walk to the coffee shop this morning, instead of drive, and the fact that I decided to go at all, will have resulted in saving a life. A small life, but a life nonetheless. If it lives. That small choice on my part, may have been very consequential for another. A matter of life and death, even. And I move on, I go to the cafe, I get a coffee and carry on like normal – but for that slug, that slug may have thought it was all over, and it was going to die in that barren place. And like magic, a God-hand descends from the sky, and transports it away to safety. In the blink of an eye, rescued from a bleak and certain death.

You can imagine, if you were stranded in the desert, and the same thing happened to you. It would be quite incredible. You would never forget it.