Poetic Fiction Science Fiction Fun and Possibility In Rhythm and Rhyme. Hungry Flies This poem might disturb you, so consider very well, if your heart is weak, and you get scared when touched by sights of hell. If the graphic makes you nervous, I suggest you turn away, or every bug that lands on you might make your courage stray . . . for once upon a time not yet, a famine struck the land, and even healthy humans felt too drained to even stand. As it is in Evolution, dire need makes creatures change, as the spirals of their DNA for survival, re-arrange. This here is the story of a strong tenacious fly that realized it would go extinct waiting for its food to die. It developed teeth for burrowing, aided by salivic acid. It loved to land in ear canals and dig ‘till its warm host was flaccid. This fly was a bit more slender than the ones who came before. This helped it to lay eggs by increasing ease of bore. This planet has seen creatures zip by just like our days, and different organisms rise with more dominating ways. This tiny little burrower would land within the ear, and just before its barbed feet touched, its wings the host would hear Trying to knock off the bug, or squish it really fast, was hard to do, ‘cause it was fast, too, and hungered that its seed would last. As soon as it made contact it spit and chewed soft tissue through. In just over an instant one could squirm its way in you! Tent fabric was too delicate . . . underwear too loose and thin . . . and sometimes in its desperate state it even ate right through the skin. Survival of the species long on top of Life’s food chain was threatened by this little bug that loved to eat the brain. Before a person’s limbs fell limp by nerves gnawed unattached, insanity would plague the mind as its control became detached. The fly would need not burrow deep before it laid its many eggs, and one could barely feel the cuts made by its clawing razor legs. It only took two hours before completion of their feast, and through the eyes and nose and mouth five hundred more flies were released. Because of all the carnage their appetites would leave behind, the surface of the Earth became where ruling insects dined. The humans scrambled valiantly responding to the threat, but the drought that made their bodies faint hindered how lucky they could get. The poor were thought expendable when triage had to rule, and the ones with less intelligence could not find safety in a school. War made organizing tough, though its wounds had long since passed, so the falling of the living was like a fire raging fast. Oh! This tiny, icky bug so hungry to consume! The humans were like withered stems where a garden used to bloom. I cannot tell the ending, because the records aren’t complete, and it hasn’t been revealed what destiny brought them to meet, but these hungry little insects, who wanted nothing but more food, struck like out of nowhere, and dampened every body’s mood.          The End                              Joseph Stegner               September 18, 2002               Pantoll Ranger Station               Campsite #14               Mount Tamalpais               California ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Suddenly, Within a Field Suddenly, within a field, the angry bull crossed paths, and the human, with two empty hands, would have to fight off Rage’s wrath. Humans loved their beefburgers, and steaks were loved the most. Many this Steer’s dearest loved ones, by human appetite, were ghost. Here, with no trees or devices, no tools, nor training, as well . . . The Bull with four hooves, and two horns, had a message he wanted to tell. The man who had nothing but fists and legs became aware of something new. That his form was not superior, was, suddenly, quite true. Dominant in our circumstance, and what we have achieved, how Life can change who reins the Earth, was suddenly perceived.                       August 8, 2005 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Council Thought It Just Plain Sense The Council thought it just plain sense to have a way to always win, so they authorized secret passages beneath each home they could bore in. Like a vacuum in the night time, sucking all the contents out, the tunnels and the S.U.C.C.  teams proved effective, without doubt. All dwellings have their vacant times, or times when noise has many masks, and the burrowers had all the tools to perform their covert tasks. When the neighborhood was silent, or even any time at all, the S.U.C.C. teams cut right through the floor, and gave no chance for help to call. Their presence was kept secret by the best technology, and floors could be resurfaced so even sharp eyes couldn’t see. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ANTS!! People couldn’t feel them thriving in pulsing colonies beneath the ground. How many, in mass, swelled in caverns was not a surface-reaching sound. Humans only saw the little trails marched in single file, unaware of the growing numbers they were feeding all the while . . . WAIT!!!!  This isn’t right . . . While imagining what to write that would take the audience for a wild ride of adventure, suspense, and tragedy, I realized that I might be responsible for causing unpleasant and unbeneficial fears.  If even one child was suddenly afraid to play outdoors because they feared the worst might come, and ants, by many millions, crawled from the ground much faster than they could run . . . despite a sprinting human’s try to escape on just two legs, they would always tire out to feel those pinchers on ant heads. Ants could flow for many miles in a constant hurried pace. A human, at much slower rate, covers a fraction of that space. I realized that, by writing this, hyper imaginations just might freak, and the nerves of the impressionable, when they are alone, might make them weak. But what if such were really true, and there was no way we could know? What’s deep beneath the ground, to eyes and ears, may never show. What if great forethinkers, who lived in structured, ordered lands, centuries ago, began to tunnel with such plans? What if suddenly, surprisingly, they sprang with all the tools of mind, and equipped for sure success killed the weaker they would find, and beneath the weight of trampling, the unprepared for such attack, had no way to defend themselves, and no means to drive them back? Unlike entertainment games, or movies on TV, when insects eat the body, there is no other chance to Be.               August 21, 2005 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&           Who Knows What They Were Thinking? Who knows what they were thinking when they had too much to drink, and mixed those chromosomes within the lab! Body Size and Horny Drive seemed like a funny combination, but, in a Pigeon, is not cause to laugh! In their intoxication, spending too long at the bar, they should have left their keys on other rings, for mixing Way and Genius, with judgment-fogging liquor, can lead to shame with what that duo brings. They spliced the DNA, in a quite successful fashion, opening a new Pandora’s Box. Some things are too dangerous to be let out in the wild, and must remain behind genetic locks. They giggled how the pigeons would become a sightly problem if they were as big as Hippo’s in their size. with beaks that could pluck out a human’s eyes. Imagine if a heavy bird, much bigger than you are, landed on your child or your wife! and because it was so hungry, and superior in strength, there was nothing you could do to save their life! They didn’t think of that perspective when they experimented lightly, with humor clouded by the drink they chose. In the morning they would hate themselves, and wish they never fell, but, from their folly, birds that plucked through building rooftops rose Suddenly, while sleeping, in the country, or the city, through the wall a probing cluck would crack, and humans, once quite comfortable, that none would eat them where they went, became a flying creature’s favorite snack. Lumber was not thick enough. Brick just slowed it down, and shingles were like leaves upon a hole. The birds would peel them off, and eat the contents of the box, or bust in windows searching for a soul. Food was rather plentiful in urban concentrations, and they reproduced as quickly as a fly. They would lay their eggs without the need to rest upon the nest, as they searched for their next meal from in the sky.                                July 1, 2005               To Be Continued . . . +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++