We looked down at the cicada. It lay on its back, on the unforgiving concrete surface of my building's stairwell. The hot July sun shone on the stair and beat down on the dying creature.

I bent for a closer look. Its legs twitched in the air and its wings beat in futile defiance.

"The life of a cicada is very short," Amanda said, and continued descending the stairs. "A week. Ten days, maybe."

I reached into my pocket, searching for anything to pick the creature up with.

"Still, he doesn't have to die here," I replied, deciding finally on a plastic bankcard as my most effective tool. "Laying on his back with no dignity, baking in the sun until someone steps on him."

Amanda stopped, now nearly at the next landing.

"They hibernate for seven years, then come out and live in the real world for a week before dying," she shrugged. "What's the point?"

I tilted the bankcard against the ground, working my rescue trolley under the insect. Amanda stood looking up at me. Humoring me.

After straightening myself up, I held the card in front of me with two hands, balancing my passenger like an overfull cup of soup at Joe's 23 Diner.

The front door chimed as Amanda opened it. She held it for me as I exited and walked around the side, where a row of bushes grew flush against the gray brick wall. I began turning the card over next to one of the leaves.

When the card reached a steep enough angle, the cicada began to slide down its surface. Soon it would fall, uncontrolled to the leaf.

Amanda gasped and I jumped back — suddenly awakened, the cicada righted itself and flew off into the blazing sun, buzzing all the while, nothing more than a speck of black against a bright yellow sun.