From all of my research on the subject of locust attacks, it seemed
there was no precedent for a small attack force. Locusts traditionally
attacked in a "swarm" of millions, covering the land in their tiny,
crunchy bodies. A single locust apparently was not worth even noticing,
only the swarm presented a threat of any sort.
I began to wonder about these Locusts that had attacked my dog.
Were they Locust Special Forces? Some sort of specially trained locust paramilitary organization? A bizarre Soviet project? Part of some CIA covert operation?
Perhaps they were genetically engineered Super Locusts? A little
side project of the Pentagon's germ warfare program? A gene-splicing
experiment run by the frozen aliens at Area 51?
Space Locusts? Swarming from star to star on molecular-lace wings of titanium, carried on by the solar wind?
What is a solar system anyways? An accretion of dust - the final resting place of the atomic swarm, exhausted into inanimation? From ashes to ashes, dust to dust, dust to insect to dust to new life rising from the biomolecular soup to insect reborn. The aeon-long life cycle of the Space Locust?
The Swarm Remembers.
Or perhaps they were Werelocusts? Lycanthropic creatures, half
locust, half human? Blending in with the anonymous mass of humanity
by day, to strike forth as monsters whenver the moon called their
true nature forth?
I started experimenting. I would engage a stranger in idle talk or lovemaking, then suddenly flash a photograph of the moon at them and watch their reaction.
Alas, try as I might, I found no werelocusts. Werewolves, weretigers,
werevultures, werecobras, werespiders, and weremarmosets abounded all
around me, even a few weretriffids, but no sight of a werelocust!
Had they outsmarted me again?
Obviously my blundering investigations had put them on their guard. They must be somewhere high above, watching my desperate and futile inquisitions with scorn and laughter, taking turns watching me through their Evil Locust Telescope.
This universe is damnably complex indeed.
