Leon smiled at the earwig scuttling across the floor away from him. He swung himself around to face it and held a cracked hand out in front of the bug, another hand behind it to usher it forward.
Once he held the crawler in his hand he brought it to his eyes, barely inches away from it. He watched the tiny pincers on the front of the earwig open and contract furiously, as if the bug was trying to show his indignation at being picked up.
“Pinchey.” Leon said and laughed, delighted at his naming prowess. His voice was harsh, and the one word sent him into a coughing fit. When it subsided he drew a deep and ragged breath, taking in all the air his tiny lungs could hold.
“I- LOOOOOVE you Pinchey!”
The bug, whether at its wit’s end, or just lacking any wit in the first place, leapt from Leon’s palm. It landed next to the boy’s knee and immediately tried to flee, but the fall had damaged two of its legs past the point of usability. It scuttled slowly away, dragging its mangled legs beneath it, until it reached the shelter of a crack in the floorboard, at which point it disappeared.
Leon’s eyes opened wide with shock. A tiny giggle at the earwig’s strange movements and awkward shuffling burst from his lips. He remained perfectly still after that for six seconds exactly, and then began to wail.
The sound was heartbreaking, mournful, and real. But most of all, it was ear splittingly loud. Leon would never be able to remember how long he had cried for; not ten years later when he stared at the third set of new and unfamiliar walls he had been placed in; not eighteen years later when he awoke to an IV in his arm and the worst headache he had ever caused himself; and not twenty-six years later, when he made his first genuine attempt to recall his life, because he knew he was at the end of it.
When Leon realized that his greatest regret was not knowing what had happened to his tiny friend that he had loved and stung, he laughed until it hurt to breathe, and then began to wail.