About Those Dying Fish and Birds....

Dying birds and fish first in Arkansas and now in Louisiana? Hmmmm....that sparks a half dozen conspiracy theory stories in my little brain. But, in the meantime, here's a little something I wrote back in 2008. Of course, we know the current situation isn't West Nile, but perhaps it really was 1,000 screaming spirits in a possessed body. Hey, you never know. Here's the excerpt from the unpublished novel (<--oh how I disdain the word novel...it just sounds, well, hokey, I guess, but it's the word that best fits the piece of writing this excerpt comes from):

"....David’s consciousness, his memory—whatever he had become now that he was in this new observer’s vantage point—was unsure of his own capabilities. He was doubtful of his capacity for movement, but, by concentrated force of will, was able to catch up to and stay with the body. It was already in the garage by the time David got there, already putting the car into reverse and backing out. When David drew close enough to the driver’s side window, the body’s elemental magnetism pulled him towards it with such force that he was sucked in, through a filter of glass and fabric, which ruffled his atomic structure and gave him a weak electric charge. Inside, David saw his spinal column glowing with a phenomenal light, and on each vertebra, there was the faintest suggestion of a human face, of a screaming human face. The sound they made was piercing, above any auditory range perceptible to humans. It subdued him instantly and the rest of the ride became a velvety, but irretrievable darkness.

The car—Roger’s car, which sped along Route 30 and down 15 towards Frederick, Maryland—awoke masses of roosting birds with the piercing acoustic dissonance emitted by the spiritual core of its solitary human passenger. The next day, more than two dozen birds were found dead beneath their nighttime perches. The discovery was interpreted by authorities as a confirmation that the West Nile Virus was indeed spreading north."
-- from The Davidian Odyssey