A Crunch in the Compost

Sunk my feet into the warm, damp pile of black earth and decaying peelings. Good rot here. Rich. Something wriggled near an apple core—a beetle, fat and slow. I crushed it into a brown leaf and chewed. Earthy. Bitter crunch. Stilled my tread when a thin gray spider stepped across a rotting rind beside my toes. I did not crush it. I stood entirely still, rumbling low until it drifted safely into the shadow beneath the cedar fence.