Author Tony Vernon ◦
Imagine hanging out in your favourite alfresco dining spot, anticipating a freshly flown-in “plat du jour”, only to find yourself mugged and drugged by said meal. A life changing experience, literally. For upon awakening, though you may not yet feel or recognise the difference, your existence belongs to another. Your fate, now irrevocably determined and inextricably linked to an alien passenger strategically positioned beyond reach.
The newly emerged infant life form begins to feed, vampire-like, drawing on your body fluids. A relentless cycle of continuously growing demand begins, steadily increasing until it equals, and then outstrips your own nutritional needs. You continue to feed a ravenous hitchhiker at the expense of your own body. The end is near. A chemical compulsion floods your weakening body, in your Zombified state you are driven inexplicably to construct a shelter you will never use. Even now as you complete this final act, the relentless manipulator continues feasting, until the last internal vestiges of your body are consumed. Your lifeless husk callously cast aside, forgotten as the master puppeteer takes charge of your recently vacated structure embarking upon the next leg of its own incredible journey.
Ichneumonid spider Parasitoid wasp Eriostethus pulcherrimus, attacking and paralysing a larval host, Neoscona theisi, (Common Web-spider).
Location: Gregory River, Whitsunday region Nth Qld.
