A small victory

Picking up the coaster, Cesar inspected it for damage.
Square, solid looking and with the words ‘Mocha’ and ‘Cappuccino’ running through it, he could detect no cracks or chips anywhere about its glassy surface.
He wiped away the condensation that had seconds earlier caused the coaster to bond momentarily with his glass of lemonade. Once that bond between moisture and two sets of glass had taken hold, there was little the four rubber pads that kept it still on a table could do to keep it on the ground. In fact, it is in such a moment when one realises just how weak the force of gravity is. Even a man can jump free of it for a second, or scale a wall or cliff and stand at its peak for hours, in rapture, glowering at gravity, like a king to the rabble beyond his castle walls.
That this sturdy square of glass could be freed from the ever engaging hands of gravity for a while, by an almost supernatural ability to fuse with some cooled water vapour, was a small wonder of this world. Gravity won in the end, but it should almost have been blushing after almost being bested in this manner.
Cesar moved to restore the coaster to its idle place on the windowsill. Before placing it down, though, he spied through the translucent surface of the coaster a tiny beetle, about a centimetre long. He examined it there, within the window of the coaster, picking out its miniscule legs and pincers, its carapace shell and the small red dots that peppered its black armour.
Then, Cesar moved the coaster sharply and pushed it down. And then he lifted it back up. The beetle twitched for a moment and carried on nibbling at the dust it had found.
Cesar nibbled at his bottom lip with his incisors and considered carefully his next move. He estimated and then pushed down, lifted up and saw the beetle munching away. He turned the coaster over and examined it.
The four half balls of rubber it rested on curved enough to save a tiny beetle unless one’s accuracy was perfect.
Sure of his strategy now, Cesar pushed down quickly and then lifted, took a visual reading and pushed down again.
On the third push he heard a satisfying crack and felt a tiny body giving way to his will. He was a proud Goliath then, and basked in glory for a moment before worrying that the little creature might have made a mess of his nice coaster.
Cesar turned over his glass weapon. The inert beetle was crushed, but had generally retained its coleopteran shape. ‘How much mess can a little one make, anyway?’ wondered Cesar to himself.
And then, still feeling like a giant, he brought the wielded coaster up close to his face, inspected the remains for a moment and licked the foremost rubber foot, taking the dead beetle into his mouth.
“Yum, yum, yum!” Cesar intoned in his best booming voice, and then settled back to enjoy the sound inside his own head, as his tiny enemy was mashed between his molars.