The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is out to Get Us! (760 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.07 on 27 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Ballare (View user info) at 2008-01-20 22:17:23 EST
Bright laughter drifts up from the beach below the steep cliffs, and I lean out and shade my eyes. The bright summer light gilds several small insects moving shapes below me, though only one of them is gazing up towards me. I wave down to the ant that is my sister, and seeing my tousled blonde hair glint in the sunlight, she waves back.
I take a deep breath and step back a few paces. I exhale slowly, and in one, two, three - I leap!
Suddenly I am in the air, falling gracelessly, flourishing my limbs, shouting wordlessly. They all turn to see me, all those tiny insect shapes, and I am plunging downwards, tumbling swiftly until I collide - splash! - a crashing plummet into spray of droplets, a wash of water in my mouth, my ears, my nostrils.
I come up burbling and laughing, coughing, and with a flurry of tanned arms and legs I am pushing myself towards shore. I am buoyed by the clarity of the day, by the simple pleasure of the water on my skin, by the flip-flop of my stomach catching up with me.
My sister is waiting for me, ripples lapping at her thin colt's legs, and she is smiling, waving. Drawing nearer, I feel round pebbles scraping at my knees, and I pull myself upright and splash towards her.
I am reaching towards her - wet, dripping, laughing - when I see the wasp on her arm.
Safe. I am secure and sheltered in my room. The bolts and catches are locked and I have stuffed a towel under the treacherous gap under the door. The blinds are drawn, but I have checked the windows enough times to be reassured they, too, are tightly shut.
My sister is laying in the sand, her arms wrapped about her head. She is shouting wordlessly, and I am falling gracelessly to the ground next to her, plucking at her hands and tugging at her elbows.
On her shoulder, there, I see an angry red welt that pulses and seeps, and there, on her stomach, and there, on her cheek, and there...
The hot beach scalds my knees as I gather her in my arms and stand, but she is thrashing and yelling, and I barely hold her tight against her.
I am covered from head to toe in everything I could find in my drawers and closet. My hands are sweating in my winter gloves; I have pulled my tuque down snug over my eyes, my ears. Long pants cover my legs, and I have shod my feet with heavy wool socks.
With my sister in my arms, barefoot, I lurch down First Street. I am trailing droplets of water and sand, and the pavement is hot under my feet.
I stumble into a stranger; he catches me and holds me by the shoulders. I turn my face up to him, pleading, and he takes my sister from my arms, gently, solidly. His lips upturn but he is not smiling, but I am too grateful to notice, and I slump against a wall.
He is walking away from me with my sister in his arms, and from behind him I see him a wasp alight softly on the back of his neck.
I shout out and reach for him but already there is a red and pulsing swelling; already upon his neck, along his flesh, creep fierce throbbing hives.
And upon my outstretched arm I see a smudge of red and black, of translucent wafting wings.
Like any child, I have retreated under my blankets, shuddering, but not before I catch sight of the wasp, daintily perched on the edge of my dresser.
I close my eyes, tightly.
**
There is a town, a dusty and shabby and small town of only a few hundred people, that lays snug against a winding river somewhere west and north of Chicago. It lays still and silent; heat shimmers upward from the empty grey streets and the sun glints harshly off empty glass panes. Within and without, down red-bricked First Street and throughout the whitewashed neighbourhoods, there is a certain stillness.
On the sidewalk, there is a wasp with her wings outstretched.
User Reviews
Submitted by Arnold_Benedict (user info) at 2008-02-10 13:23:58 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
women are inferior to men
Submitted by Green_Ranger (user info) at 2008-02-10 13:00:30 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by jaker29902 (user info) at 2008-01-21 19:07:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Meh s'alright
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2008-01-21 15:56:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i too am confused but my thinking meat is fuzzy today so maybe it's just me. we're all meat.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-01-21 15:06:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked it well enough but.... it's missing something...
ungh. it make my thoughtmeats hurt to think today, when it seems all the western world has the day off... except me and Lakeesha and Todd, typing away into infinity...
Perhaps we'll write Hamlet after all.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-01-21 15:03:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Hmmmm.
I'm really not sure what to make of this one.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2008-01-21 14:43:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2008-01-21 14:22:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Where are your fucking tits already. Jesus fucking christ you procrastinate. Don't give me the "don't have time" fuck line either, or else you wouldn't have wrote this wonderful piece that I didn't read.
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2008-01-21 13:42:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
there was too much....something.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-01-21 12:29:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
At least I didn't call you a philistine?
Submitted by BritishBeef (user info) at 2008-01-21 12:28:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
On the contrary I'm told I taste lovely.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2008-01-21 12:27:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I HATE WASPS.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-01-21 12:13:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
poor taste below
Submitted by BritishBeef (user info) at 2008-01-21 12:01:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-01-21 10:30:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I've been having dreams again lately. At least that I can remember, which hasn't happened for almost a year.
Last night I saw the end of the world, though I can't remember how it happened. All I can remember is fear, and futile desperation.
Probably just a reminder in my mind that Life After Humans comes on tonight.
But just in case, you heard it here first. Not that it'll really matter.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-01-21 09:47:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Wasps suck balls.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2008-01-21 08:51:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2008-01-21 06:30:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
im sure this is lovely
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2008-01-21 05:23:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Huh...
Not really sure what to make of this.
Feels like a dream, though (like Saccy said).
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-01-21 04:12:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I hate wasps.
Submitted by Grimm (user info) at 2008-01-21 02:37:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2008-01-20 23:25:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
moron.
Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2008-01-20 23:24:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
this is not even a real story - it is winter in canada.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-01-20 23:10:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
whoops sorry I got a little overexcited there
also 'and I barely hold her tight against her' is supposed to be '... hold her tight against me'
typos are cocks
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-01-20 23:06:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
FTW - HMMMM INDEED
Submitted by forthewin (user info) at 2008-01-20 22:49:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This reminds me of a song I heard.
By Sufjan Stevens...
HMMMM...
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2008-01-20 22:46:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This reminds me of a dream I had the other night, only I was the one getting stung over and over by bugs that in my dream I called 'doberman pinscher bugs' (nonsense makes sense in my dreams)and I could feel the stings, they felt like wasps.