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A Study in White-Nose Syndrome Mortality
by Ashely Adams She comes awake, unnatural wing twitch within the embrace of hibernacula. Nestled under rock, between her sisters, brothers, heartbeats slow and distant like steady traffic passing over a pothole. She shivers, stretching body-length fingers, ears like biological VLA, circling. Trying to find alien or friend. She scratches at muzzle caked in parasitic frost, at wing membranes necrotized. Holes scattered like paint on postmodern mural. Medium--P. destructans. She flies like her ancestors, dodging six-mile-wise space iron, dinosaur-killing, bullet. Finish line of K-T iridium Only to meet spore-dressed boots in 747 cargo bays. Mass extinction New York via France She is in light. Naked blue and solar brilliance, throwing frantic chirps across the landscape looking for beetle, moth, any insect. Echolocation for salvation She struggles. There is nothing, but air thick with cold, suffocating white. She falls… |
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