Millipede

 Do millipedes feel annoyance? It’s something I never really thought about. Today at the lake, I happened to witness an episode that makes me wonder. 

 At first I thought it was a worm, pink underbelly writhing and legs invisible against the dirt. When it flipped over and commenced its crawl, I recognized that it was a millipede. Then I noticed it had a passenger - a small fly or a gnat was lighting on the millipede’s back, inducing the aggravated flip onto its back and worm-like wriggling. The fly fell off, the millipede flipped back and began to scamper away, then it was back and the millipede repeated its process.

 I suppose it is more likely some sort of defensive instinct, but the crawler sure did seem irritated by the fly’s antics.