Little Heaven
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THERE IS A SAYING THAT GOES: Evil never dies; it merely sleeps. And when that evil awakes, it can do so soundlessly—or almost so.
Even insects can scream.
The little aphid did, though at a register too high for any human ear to perceive. It toiled in the root system of a cactus plant growing on the edge of the New Mexico desert. An insect so small that it was practically invisible to the naked eye.
This was how it would begin again. The wheel coming around.
While the aphid fed on sugars deposited in the cactus roots, something curled up from the blackest recesses of the earth. It slipped inside the aphid’s body. If there was any pain—and yes, there would be—the insect was unable to articulate its agony beyond that thin scream.
The aphid trundled up the root stem, through the loose-packed sand, up onto one of the cactus’s fleshy leaves. There it encountered a honey ant, which fed on the honeydew that aphids produce.