february 10, 2025 

preservation

karan parikh

The scratching never stopped in our old house. It lived in the walls like a secret, worse at night when everything else fell quiet. I used to lie awake counting the sounds: the slow drag of legs across wood, the soft tap of bodies hitting baseboards, the endless clicking that reminded me of tiny machines.

"That's how you know it's a good specimen site," my father would say, his voice bright with enthusiasm. "Life finds a way in." He didn't seem to notice how I'd inch away from the walls, how I'd check my shoes each morning before putting them on.

My grandmother lived with us, but barely seemed to live in our house at all. She moved through rooms like a ghost, quiet and contained, speaking only when necessary. Sometimes, I'd find evidence of her presence—a cup of cold tea, an open window, the faint scent of lavender—but rarely the woman herself. I used to think she was just shy, until I noticed how she would stop at doorways, counting her steps before entering a room.

After my mother left, my father converted our basement into what he called his research space. The warm, lived-in scent of old books and furniture was replaced by the sharp bite of preservatives and the musty smell of decay. Glass jars lined the shelves like soldiers, each containing perfect specimens pinned in eternal poses. Beetle bodies gleamed under the fluorescent lights: emerald, copper, obsidian shells that would never dull.

The basement steps always creaked twice: once when someone descended, once when they returned. I learned their rhythm helping my father with his specimens. But sometimes, late in the evening, I'd hear just a single creak. My grandmother would be standing at the top of the stairs, one hand on the rail, looking down into the darkness where my father's killing jars gleamed. She never took that second step. Never came down. Just watched, her face impossible to read, before turning away and disappearing back into the quiet spaces of the house.

I helped him because it was the only time he really saw me. I learned to spot the telltale signs of beetle habitats, though I'd never touch them myself. When we worked together, he'd talk about his specimens like old friends, each one cataloged with careful notes about where and when they were found, their measurements, their distinctive markings. But he saved his real passion for the golden scarab.

"Twenty years I've been searching," he'd say, showing me the same dogeared photograph for the hundredth time. The image was too faded to make out much beyond a hint of iridescent shell, but his eyes would light up every time. "No one's documented a living specimen in thirty years. But I'll find it, Sophie. It's out there."

The sound of counting drew me to the attic one night. I found my grandmother kneeling beside an old trunk, her lips moving silently as her fingers touched each item inside. When she saw me in the doorway, she quickly closed the lid. "Some things we keep," she said softly, "some things keep us." Her sleeve rode up as she stood, revealing a flash of faded numbers I didn't understand.

I started spending time in the attic after that, drawn to the mystery of my grandmother's past that lived in those boxes. She never talked about it directly, but sometimes she'd find me there and sit quietly, sorting through photographs and documents, occasionally sharing a small story about before. Before what, she never said. I noticed how she organized everything with precise care, each box numbered instead of named, each item counted and recounted. One night I went up alone, and the attic had only dust and shadows—no trunk, no boxes, no trace of my grandmother's past.

The basement began to change for me, too. Or maybe I was the one changing. It started with the rhinoceros beetles my father brought home one Wednesday evening. He'd found a mated pair and separated them into different killing jars. As the fumes began to work, the male kept tapping against the glass, moving in the same pattern over and over. In the adjacent jar, the female mimicked his movements exactly, their antennae reaching toward each other through the space between them. They died that way, still trying to touch.

I dreamed of those beetles that night, their synchronized dance playing out behind my eyelids.

- - -

The next week, I watched a group of ground beetles in one of the holding tanks. One had been injured, its back leg crushed somehow. Three others surrounded it, their antennae gently probing the wound. They worked together to move their injured companion to a darker corner of the tank, bringing small pieces of bark to create a shelter. Every few hours, one would return with food. They didn't abandon it, even after it died.

My father would document behaviors like these in his notebooks with clinical precision. "Subject exhibits apparent cooperative behavior," he'd write, or "Specimen displays mate-seeking patterns." His hand was always steady when he transferred them to the killing jars. From the top of the stairs, my grandmother would sometimes watch him label his specimens, her own hands moving unconsciously, as if counting.

I started lingering in the basement after he'd gone to bed. The nighttime brought out different behaviors in the beetles. Under the dim emergency light, they'd gather in small groups, their shells touching. Some species would create intricate patterns with their bodies, like constellations in miniature. Others would take turns standing guard while their companions rested.

Behind the water heater, I began creating my own space. It started with just one tank—a female stag beetle that was meant for the killing jar that evening. I was watching her in the holding container, the way she methodically cleaned her antennae with her front legs, and suddenly, I was five years old again, sitting on my parents' bed while my mother's gentle hands worked through my hair before sleep. My throat tightened. I filled the tank with dirt, oak leaves and rotting wood from the garden, the way I'd seen them living in the wild. She seemed to calm in the familiar environment, her movements becoming more natural, less frantic.

Soon one tank became three, then five. I learned to recognize individual beetles by tiny variations in their shells or behaviors. There was the male bark beetle with the scratched thorax who always circled his enclosure twice before eating. The pair of earth-boring beetles who seemed to take turns excavating their burrows. A group of smaller beetles that would pile together at night like sleeping puppies.

My father's absences grew longer as his search for the golden scarab consumed him. He'd return with mud on his boots and disappointment etched deeper into his face, but his notes grew more detailed, more desperate. "Specimen site 47 revealed probable feeding patterns," he'd write, his usually precise handwriting becoming jagged. "Evidence suggests recent activity. Must expand search radius."

During these absences, my grandmother's footsteps would venture further down the basement stairs, one step at a time, never quite reaching the bottom. I'd find her sometimes, frozen mid-step, staring at the neat rows of specimens with an expression I couldn't read. Once, I saw her touch the glass of a killing jar, her fingers trembling against its surface before she withdrew, clutching her numbered arm.

While he was gone, I began conducting my own research. Not with pins and killing jars, but with patience and observation. I discovered that the click beetles would respond to soft tapping sounds, developing their own patterns of communication. The wood-boring beetles created elaborate tunnel systems that seemed to follow specific rules, like a city planner's blueprint.

In my journal, I found myself using different words than my father's specimens and subjects. I wrote about families, communities, relationships. The pages filled with small stories: how the female stag beetle carefully tended her eggs, cleaning each one with her mandibles. The way two beetles would touch antennae when reuniting after separation, like a greeting between old friends. The complex negotiations over territory and resources that played out in miniature dramas.

One morning, I found my father standing over my hidden tanks, his expression unreadable. I waited for anger or disappointment, but he just stared at the beetles going about their lives behind the glass. Finally, he turned to me and said, "You've been recording observations?" When I nodded, he said nothing more, but left his killing jars empty that day.

When my father burst through the door that autumn evening, I knew before he spoke that something had changed.

"I found it," he whispered, hands trembling as he pulled out his field notebook. "A whole colony of them, Sophie. The golden scarab. We leave tomorrow."

That night, I heard my grandmother's footsteps reach the bottom of the basement stairs for the first time. Through the crack in the door, I watched her move among my father's specimens, her fingers touching each jar with the same careful counting motion she used in the attic. When she reached my tanks behind the water heater, she stood for a long time, watching the beetles move freely in their artificial homes.

Then she did something I'd never seen before—she took out an old sketchbook and began to draw. Her hands, usually so restless with counting, moved with sure, gentle strokes across the paper. She sketched the female stag beetle—my first rescue—capturing not just its form, but its movements, the way it cleaned its antennae, the careful purpose in each step.

When she finished, she opened the tank. With movements as delicate as her drawings, she lifted the beetle out. For a moment, grandmother and the beetle remained still, as if sharing some silent understanding. Then she walked up the stairs, each step measured and precise, and out into the night garden. I followed, silent as a shadow.

Under the soft glow of the porch light, I watched as she opened her hands to the darkness. The beetle lingered for a moment on her palm, antennae waving in the night air, before disappearing into the underbrush. My grandmother stood watching the spot where it vanished, her sketchbook held tight against her chest. In the gentle light, I saw her smile.

We left at first light, my father clutching his collecting jars, my hands strangely empty. The habitat was nothing like I'd imagined from his stories. No grand forest or exotic location—just a small grove of trees on the edge of an abandoned industrial site. Where the golden beetles had supposedly made their home in the space between civilization and wilderness.

We searched for hours. With each empty log he turned, each bare branch he checked, my father's movements became more desperate. His precise scientist's hands began to shake. "They were here," he kept saying, voice growing hoarse. "They were right here."

Just as he sank to his knees in the dirt, it happened. A flash of iridescent gold, and suddenly there it was, resting on my palm. Its antennae moved slowly, deliberately, the way my rescued beetles did when they sensed something familiar. When they felt safe.

I forgot to be afraid. Its shell caught the late afternoon light like stained glass, fragments of color shifting with each movement. I could feel its tiny feet exploring my palm, delicate as whispers. In its iridescent shell, I saw my own reflection, distorted and strange.

I saw my father reaching for the killing jar.

I remembered my grandmother in the garden, her hands opening to the night.

I held it still for my father's jar.

- - -

Months later, I stood in the Natural History Museum on the opening day of my father's exhibition. Children pressed their faces against the glass cases, some with wonder, some with disgust. Each specimen was perfectly preserved, labeled with his precise handwriting. A lifetime of work, pinned and cataloged.

"Sophie, come here!" My father waved from beside his prized display, the golden scarab centered under perfect lighting. He was showing a group of reporters his collecting journal, gesturing with the same precise movements he used when pinning specimens. "Let's get a photo by the case." He had started wearing bowties to these events, looking every bit the distinguished scientist. My grandmother sat on a bench against the far wall, her hands folded in her lap, counting the ceiling tiles in silence.

"Just a minute," I called back, my voice cheerful and professional. I had learned to perfect that tone.

As I took my place beside the case, I looked and saw the golden scarab's antennae still stretching forward, just as they had on my palm that day.