Everybody knows about spontaneous combustion.  That happens usually in closed places where rags and old cans of oil or kerosene have been left to the heat of the sun outside the house and, suddenly, whoops – there is spontaneous combustion. This essay is not about spontaneous combustion but about the ancient idea that life was generated by spontaneous “generation”.  In other words, the ancients did not know but dreamed up the words and claimed that at least some life suddenly appeared fully grown and, in the instance of bugs, were an always present nuisance.     

This essay has nothing to do with “life” as in “abortion”.  That applies to humans and the gestation period of approximately nine months.  Anything to artificially end that gestation is considered in some quarters as murder of the fetus no matter how much damage is done to the mother.  In some cases, the doctor helping to abort a fetus will be charged with murder and go to jail.  The mother will be punished mostly by public disapproval.

This essay has everything to do with observation of tiny life – ant-like creatures – that appear to appear on our kitchen window-sill and mill around until they disappear somewhere or are crushed by a finger for they are so small and seem not to be interested in the food on the table or in the insect-proof cookie and cereal jars that line up one end of the table.  We have “Mr. Bugoff’s” monthly appearance to spray against larger creatures and he kindly puts out little tubes of material that he claims will poison the tiny critters who like to enter the tube and leave at as they will.  Meanwhile, the finger works to destroy those that are too slow to run away and hide while thoughts about spontaneous generation reappear as if in answer to the question, “how do these little things get born and where do they come from?”

I do not know the answer to these questions nor does Mr. Bugoff seem to be up-to-date with information about them.  He calls them “water bugs” for they appear in kitchens near the source of water.  Our little bugs seem to like the window sill and the wall next to the window. 

Now, with my own eyes I have witnessed a bare wall near where I sit reading the Times that seems to suddenly generate the life of these little creatures.  They appear out of nowhere and begin to run around and look for some crevice into which they will disappear before my censuring finger squashes them.  I brought in a large magnifying glass to look at them and find they are, indeed, little ant-like creatures but have no idea how they spontaneously generated.

I believe they live within the walls of my kitchen.  But their sudden apparition on a wall, far from a crack, is unsettling.