The Wasp
Today was a very hot day.
I remember that, while slowly moving forward in the afternoon traffic, my car, my smart car, displayed an outside temperature of 31.5 degrees Celcius.
Quite hot for Belgium.
Even with the airconditioning set to maximum, my car, my also comfortable car, could not prevent the heat to give me a feeling of claustrofobia.
I experience this each summer, on the hottest days.
The heat slowly managed to transform me in the kind of driver that I detest. I'm sure you know the one.
Not my favorite season.
I could manage to get home without accidents. To my rooftop appartement. No smart thermomether. No comfortable airconditioning.
And this is what I rushed through traffic for...
I moved to the middle of the living room, facing the open window. I slowly pealed of my wet clothes. All of them.
For some time, I stood there. Arms and legs slightly raised - not touching my body. Trying to capture those few, and very faint breezes.
After cooling off, I sat down - naked - in an armchair with a book on landscape photography.
I took an apple.
While resting both elbows on the armchair, with one hand I paged through the book,
with the other I held up the apple, at a safe distance -
I did not want to stain the images.
After some time I heard the noise of an insect.
I had already finished the apple but was still holding it up what was left of it.
The insect landed on the sweet banquet and commenced consumption.
I was able to identify it as a rather small wasp.
Due to the heat I sat, glued to the chair, not motivated to respond in any way.
I slowly lowered the book on my laps and studied the insect feasting greedily.
It didn't take long before it went off again - apparently satisfied.
I wondered if it would return, as I remembered those documentaries on the remarkable pathfinder skills of bees and, I assummed, also wasps.
I continued paging the book and yes, after 10 or more minutes, what I assumed was the same insect - was back.
I again took up my - by now almost scientific - study of this insect for which I was already beginning to develop a form of attachement - call it male bonding.
As I was the more sadistically driven kind of scientist, I had already disposed of the apple right after the wasp left the first time, so I was very interested in how it would react. (so much for the male bonding)
To my surprise it started circling around the exact spot where I had been holding the apple before.
(perhaps circling is not the right word, as wasps tend to 'zig-zag' rather than circle)
From time to time it came to snif my body but it always quickly went back to the apple spot.
I'm sure this was not an action of repulsion, but merely one of not being interested in a smell that had nothing to do with food.
During the next minutes it flew out of the window again at least two times, and came back in, always going straight (well, zig-zag-straight) to the same apple spot.
Of course - being a serious scientist - I am aware that I should be carefull for all too 'human' interpretation, but still. It really looked as if my little pet (by now) was puzzled.
Real scientist or not, I must say that I was amazed that this animal was so good at remembering and finding an exact location, even more supprisingly, the exact height.
So here then is my revealing and no doubt groundbreaking scientific conclusion :
I met an animal that I found to have a good short-term memory, a very precise 'awareness' of space,
but more imporantly, the capability of hesitation, I even dear say self-doubt.
Those last two qualities, so many people lack, yet vital for what we call...intelligence.
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