Categories
Bug du Jour Doktor Fears & Phobias

Have You Got a Cricket in the Cellar?

cricketsmall

About this time every year, a cricket or two makes its home in our cellar. Sometimes, when I am on my way to the Tinker Room, or off to wash clothes, I’ll hear the last snippet of song from our winter inhabitant, cut short like a song from the shower when the singer realizes someone else could hear.

This year, however, our insect troubadour has been more less self-conscious. While I created our costumes and masks for Theatre Bizarre, I was serenaded almost constantly. I think the cricket was curious about what brought me downstairs, what made me stay there for so many hours. Was I a refugee from the garden as well?

My cricket came out of hiding long enough for me to snap this blurry photo. We can tell the face of our friends apart. Some of us can identify specific dogs and cats that we’ve known and loved. I wonder if I could grow to recognize this particular cricket? Or is the difference between its lifespan and mine too great for me to pick out its specific, personal features?

For more about bugs, check out our Kickstarter campaign for “Quick Shivers about Bugs.”

For a different perspective on these black insect fiddlers, check out “Battle Cricket” on DailyNightmare: https://dailynightmare.com/2013/09/17/bug-du-jour-battle-cricket/

Categories
"What We Fear" Bug du Jour Doktor Fiction

Bug du Jour: Battle Cricket

Cricket1

“When King Abimelech made war on the Martians, he based his strategy on the one liability these swollen-headed aliens possessed: their intellects. Instead of attacking supply lines as he had with the round-bellied Venusians, he targeted their libraries. The royal geneticists bred armored crickets as shock troops, ravenous creatures hungry for book tape, binding glue and paper. These tiny soldiers quietly emptied the bibliotechs, left dry husks, while the smug Martian guards patrolled the city domes. When the battle finally came, the aliens had forgotten even how to work their laser pistols. Worse, they no longer knew what was worth protecting.”

© 2013 James Frederick Leach

Categories
Bug du Jour Doktor Food

Bug du Jour: Lemon Pepper Spider

Spider!

“The children squealed with delight to find the hairy Wolf Spider sunning itself on the barn door. They’d been ever so hungry all summer long and harvest seemed ever so far away. They trapped it under a milk pail and Momma pan fried it for dinner, seasoned with freshly cracked pepper and a squirt of citrus. She always knew how to make the most out of the simplest ingredients. Daddy, as head of family, feasted on the rich meaty abdomen and each of the children got two of the creature’s crunchy legs, a glorious repast. Momma, strangely enough, said she wasn’t hungry.”

© 2013 James Frederick Leach

Categories
"What We Fear" Bug du Jour Doktor Fiction

Bug du Jour: “Creepy Beetle”

ScreenBeetle

“Egmont woke from a dead sleep at the sound of a heavy thump. He bolted upright in bed. His ears hungry for sound detected just the normal night sounds of summer. Yet Egmont knew in his heart that something else lurked in the midnight. He quietly padded across the floor, switched on the flood lights, threw open the front door. A beetle the size of a dinner plate perched on the screen, hideous spots across its carapace, vicious pinchers eager for flesh worked open and closed. Egmont was overcome with emotion, but he stammered, “My Precious, you’ve finally come home!”

© 2013 James Frederick Leach