Member Blog Post

A sickly deformed monkey came into a small village , so disfigured and diseased the children ran from it in terror . An attempt to trap the creature left one man without a finger stripped to the bone , the village was panicked and specialists were dispached from Rietfonttein , some were tracking the freak  mangey ape carefully , while seemingly crippled it was very fast and known to be quite vicious . Medical help and wildlife authorities would be to the village within the hour if they were prompt .

The  overlap of different locust infestation control programs in the Kalahari desert in southern Africa had unintended consequences .  In some areas entomopathogenic fungus was used when the nymphs were not as developed . Where they were closer to becoming hoppers a steroidal fragrance compound to attract parasitoid wasps was sprayed by air in the concentrations of the emerging potential plague and millions of the the parasitic wasps attracted to the scent were released . In nature the small insects are attracted to the blend of the saliva of catapillars and certain plant enzymes that mix . A fragrance is emitted that certain parasitoid wasps are very attracted to. When drawn the wasp would kill the catapillar and use the carcass to lay eggs within.. A new steroidial bio-agent mimicking the fragrance had proven very effective in labratory testing and sheer volume of the locust hatching and breeding this summer is off the charts .

Joe ( Juba Jakob ) was considering other strange happenings he had observed documenting the locust swarm development , it was unprecedented and where the treatment programs overlapped there were incidents of the parasitoid wasps feeding on the diseased grasshoppers and implanting their eggs in them even when they  were not killed , the insects being harder to kill than the catapillars that they were meant by nature to consume . The locusts were exhibiting the metabolic and behavioral changes typical when they transform from the solitary to the gregarious form without the usual stimulation of being so crowded that they rub together and excrete those dreaded pherimones like narcotics that cause the famine causing ravenous swarms . Workers reported bites  by the usually disintrested normally delicate wasps , a few weeks back a badly decomposing but still live locust split open and began wisping puffs of dark smoke , it was the baby wasps ,, it felt like there were sand fleas biting even now . Each day a few workers were failing to show up at the disaster remediation camp and the absenses were reoccuring ,  a word was spreading about the scope of the pending disaster ,  Joe had observed signs of panic in the demeanor of the trap atendants... The noise of the monkees in the night has gotten very weird of late , as if a haunting despair was setting in already . A pre-plague Joe considered with genuine worry .

Oh well , Jasmine might come home over tonight , Joe hurridly took his shower , shaved , checked email naked while he dried a bit before dressing ,,, suddenly Joe realized as he was swallowing a dry lump , he didn't remember doing it , but he did he knew it , in an instant when a fly had flown near some how he had sucked it up , and ate it !  How could he ? Grossssss , nobody could do that .... Forget that , Joe decides to squash that whole idea , Joe logged out of his yahoo , brushed his teeth , gargled ,  took a drink of water with a strangely delightful slurp and got the keys to the Jeepney , and headed out for his hot date with an atypical new confidence ,  like the first night of life , self aware , full of keen senses and quick instincts ,  And a full moon , Joe felt mighty .