BUG

   The bug was small, less than half an inch long, flat-sided like a sailboat, and lime green in color.  Maybe a young cicada or something like that.  It was crawling across the edge of one of the steps to the pool, probably a span of almost three feet.  Its progress was slow and painstaking; it moved almost as if it were limping. It must have had 6 legs, in order to qualify as an insect, but I could see only 4.  Maybe the others hadn't developed yet, or were concealed beneath its body, which was slightly higher than it was long.  In any case, it took a long time for the bug to crawl from one end of the step to the other.  When it reached the end, it stopped for a while, then turned around and proceeded to retrace its path, all the way back to where it was when I first saw it.  It rested there for a short time, and then turned and started its trip all over again.
      The bug was solitary, no other in sight.  I wondered what it was doing, what it was looking for, all by itself traversing back and forth for what purpose.   Then I remembered why I was sitting there on the steps of the deck, observing the activity of a little bug.  I had finished ten counts of walking up and down the 5 steps as a form of rehab therapy, now that I'm left to my own devices. I had sat to rest after my solitary session of activity.  To any observer, my activity would have appeared much the same as that of the bug.  Only difference------no one was watching me.