Previously on Blade Walker: The earth is inhabited by extraterrestrials, and humans are mostly confined to sanctuaries. Blade Walker and Alícia Arrepio were eating mangoes by a river when a sinkhole opened and spread. Here is the first instalment and here, the second instalment.
A buzzing sound rose
from the newly formed crevasse,
and a swarm of giant wasps emerged.
“Perhaps they’re friendly,”
I suggested.
The swarm shaped itself into
an enormous stinger heading
straight for us, and Alícia took off
like a hundred-meter sprinter,
with me chasing after her.
~/~
Over a suspenseful scene change,
the wasps gained on us,
until they were so close
that their hot insect breath
ruffled my hair. But not Alícia’s,
because she didn’t have any.
“If we’re going to be stung to death
by wasps the size of footballs,
there’s no one else I’d rather have
by my side than you, Alícia.”
“What about
a long-tongued wasp-slurping gecko man from Rigel 5?
The wasps are
a protected
species there,
quite the delicacy.”
I was weighing up the pros and cons
when a popping sound began,
like strings of Guy Fawkes fireworks.
Behind us, the football wasps
were exploding, right, left, and center.
~/~
While I was doubled over,
catching my breath,
Alícia explained.
“The pressure is higher on Rigel 5.
Here, they can survive deep underground.
On the surface, apparently they can’t.”
“We’re safe, aren’t we?”
Alícia pointed at the split carcasses,
where swarms of insects were emerging.
I reassured her.
“They’re just tiny flies, the kind that land
in your pumpkin soup and you accidentally
swallow. They taste like pepper.
Nothing to worry about.”
“You see the way they glitter in the sunlight?
The wasps were infested with magnetite mites.
“They’ll arrange themselves on our heads
in Moiré patterns, and their magnetic fields
will control our thoughts.
“We’ll be slaves of the hive.”
With my head in a cloud of silvery insects, I tried
to imagine what the mites might have in mind.
to continue
artwork
Insects, evolved with the visual evo engine, my software that seeks unimagined realms, and the Visual Revelator, that uncovers what is hidden in the shadows and the light.
I want some of what you’re having…😉
That would be French Earl Grey Tea, 😸 and to be honest, I already have enough problems distinguishing what is real from my imagination without adding to them. 😬
There’s a feeling of melting in this work which is skilful and disconcerting.
Thanks, Paul. The idea or feeling is one that first appeared in my short stories. Perhaps the question of who we really are comes into it. Leaving the allegorical aspects aside, once I was gold prospecting out in the bush with a metal detector, wearing headphones and looking at the ground. I went into a cave, and at a certain moment, I realised there was a wasps’ nest hanging down right in front me. That instant is engraved in my memory.😬
This poem captures how I feel when I turn on NBC or FOX.
Long ago, I was with a friend trying to work out where to put the television set at someone’s place. He suggested screen against the wall. Not that simple these days.
LOL
I don’t know which is more scary: being stung by a swarm of wasps or having them control my thoughts!
My close encounter with wasps in a cave, described above, has played into this piece. I don’t like wasps or insects anywhere.😬
Wasps in a cave?? I would be traumatized for life!
I laughed aloud at the final line: mind-controlling mites have something in mind?
Glad you liked. I was pleased with that, thought it was a good place to stop.
Enjoying this series, Steve, I was thinking , perhaps, Harrison Ford could play the main character. He’s 79, but he’d only have to walk in this one. Then he broke into a run! Wonderful visuals in this…JIM
Thanks Jim, and glad you like the images. 79. So much time has gone by. I first saw Star Wars in California. I’d just come back from Brazil to Australia, and I was attending a conference there.
Strange magical creatures and customs. And the movie was much the same.😸