for Marc Vincenz
by Jon Wesick
The thread-legged assassin bug sliced Chicken Cordon Bleu with his stiletto at Reykayvik’s only Swiss restaurant. He’d honed the blade razor sharp for close-in work but preferred to complete most contracts at distance with a Model 71 Mauser. The golden-brown chicken breast stuffed with Ibérico ham and nutty Emmenthal was tastier than the bubbling pots of upland-pill-snail fondu or the fermented Greenland shark his cocklebur-weevil henchmen craved. Who could account for plebian’s taste? Maybe they enjoyed the smell of rotting ammonia or maybe the chordate’s longevity gave them glimpses of immortality. The leviathan even entranced Thor Heyerdahl who when spotting the apex predator from a reed raft off Baffin Island dreamed up an expedition to prove Aztecs were the first to summit the Matterhorn.
The waitress, a twice-stabbed lady beetle, brought a bottle of Brazilian Zinfandel, made from black-skinned grapes grown on the misty banks of Iguazu Falls and aged in anjica barrels. The assassin bug nodded after sniffing the cork.
Annoyed with his colleague for starting without him, a spotted lanternfly pulled up a chair. He’d nibbled on a tree of heaven before arriving as he was resigned to the assassin bug’s impatience. The two had collaborated for decades, rooting out infiltrators posing as giant golden orb weavers on Victoria Peak and recruiting swallowtail butterflies in Bangalore. The lanternfly slid an envelope of Icelandic krona across the table and poured straw-colored wine into his glass to toast their success. As well as notes of tatami, bokken, and new judogis fresh from the plastic wrapper, the Zinfandel tasted faintly of neem. As his one-chambered heart seized in his thorax, the lanternfly realized the ten-toed, bipedal earthling wasn’t the assassin bug’s target. He was.
The assassin bug motioned for the twice-stabbed lady beetle to clear the table and ordered an aphid honeydew tart for dessert.
Add comment