Liberties There's nothing Artificial about our Intelligence

A ladybird, or ladybug (call it  what you will) has crept  onto my pillowcase — this one so small it  can hardly be seen. Except  I do see it; it is marking the place  where I slept like a bloodstain.  You shrug, tell me it’s good luck,  give our duvet a perfunctory sweep. But I cannot possibly sleep here: on the windowpane a new brood crawls and keeps watch — we are sitting ducks. It happens almost every night: cloaked in red, one marauder, or two, takes flight, infiltrates our bed with dishevelled wings — something thin and black  always trailing sideways from its back, which it eventually pulls tight as if tucking its own covers  Semi-annual, this infestation nevertheless surprises us, like the changing of the clocks. The first few we discover have the charm of snowflakes (no two the same!), but soon a whole nation of scarlet flocks to the house: a British  invasion. Once adored but now persona-non-grata: isn’t it always the way? Two on the headboard are making me skittish — one in bloodred, poured with black, the other flecked terracotta.