On Sinister Pond | Mindsuckers

in the shadow of California Peaks
children skip stones across the surface
of a local watering hole as the day
warms they wade into the shallows where
a McCobb drama unfolds the kids aren’t
at risk but other creatures are being
bizarrely transformed the perpetrator is
a microscopic flat worm right pariah on
da tree dancing its way through three
separate hosts like the beats of a dark
waltz first the flat worm invades a
snail’s reproductive organs turning it
into a parasite machine each night the
snail releases thousands of flat worm
larvae that seek out the next host a
tadpole
the larvae dig themselves into the
tadpoles budding limbs as the tadpole
grows into a frog these cysts cause
grotesque deformities
the crippled frogs are pitifully
incapable of avoiding danger even when
they see it coming and they fall prey to
the swift beaks of water birds like this
heron the heron with a frog full of
parasites in its belly flies off to
another pond spreading the parasite in
its feces to begin the cycle anew
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