As I Tried To Sleep

If I had my way there would be a special kind of fate for biting insects.

I imagine that some person would discover a kind of antithesis to the Deplorable Word: The Word of Divine Vengeance Upon All Blood Sucking and Otherwise Vexatious Insect-like Creatures. Every Horsefly and Deerfly - to mention two delights of the earth - would feel a slight crushing presence as the sweet syllables of WDVUABSOVIC were spoken. That would quickly become the searing agony of a hundred million deaths all compressed into an unimaginable instant. Waking as from a nightmare, the Hfly and Dfly would sputter around what appeared to be earth. Just as they were recovering and setting their instinctually rabid minds to the hunt for flesh, a peculiar droning would fill their senses. Tiny winged humans - themselves damned for s-l-o-w-i-n-g before every pathetic twitch of the highway mistaken for a corner - would fill the air, mindlessly bouncing off the bodies and heads of the would-be hunters. And just as that appeared normal, a Dfly would feel a slight, but mind-bogglingly irritating sensation. A minuscule human was preparing to feed by biting into his victim's thorax.

Oh, the wonder of the moment as collectively the Biters came to an awful consciousness: There was no prey but themselves. For all eternity they would be tormented ceaselessly by angry, droning, body-pinging, biting, tiny, winged humans.

I have to wonder if the speaker of the WDVUABSOVIC would even realise the freakish power of that precious word. I suspect not. In fact, I like to imagine that they considered themselves clever for inventing a new curse-word in the midst of insect driven hell. After speaking it and smiling happily to themselves, they might comment on the "wind finally blowing the insects away." And with that they would continue their work, whistling some half-remembered tune periodically.

A new era would likely dawn on the earth, as people everywhere lost their primary reason for insane rage. Men at war would stare dumbfounded at their weapons, dropping them in disgust and immediately discussing the latest trend toward forcing your will upon others in order to protect your rights through striking.

Of course that leads to another story, wherein once-upon-a-time owners abused employees with impunity in the selfish pursuit of profits. Correctly, the workers banded together in common interest. As fate and human nature would have it, their power eventually diluted their reasoning, turning them into a form of legalised Mafia with all the inherent trappings and very little of the honour. Their motto seems to have become, "We support your economy through minimal work and maximum wages. Now stop hurting our economy by purchasing from competitive businesses."

Ah, the rage. Can you feel it? How sad that as thousands of years of war came to an end, new wars would immediately begin as labour unions used the pause to declare war on everyone else. Fortunately for mankind, most of these would immediately collapse into bitter disputes over vacation pay and weapon-carrying weight allowances.


Addendum: I know employer/employee abuses still exist, but that is outside the context I am using.