May 18, 2012

• They Feed

  

      I lay motionless on my stomach in six inches of filthy water, full of silt, animal waste and mosquito larva plus indescribable snot like slime.  It’s the middle of the night and it’s been raining for hours, and the water is rising. Our squad has returned to these rice patties every night for a week with two other squads to set up a linear ambush , but with no success. But tonight, there were sounds. Faint metallic sounds in the bush. We all lay there, frozen, scared and in total misery.

     The rain keeps the skeeters away….but, there are other abhorrence creatures that it doesn’t. The water now covers all of me except for my back and head. That’s when I start to feel them crawl. Slow, slug like as they reach my back. I don’t feel the parasite’s bite as the medic tells us they secrete a toxin that numbs it. I lay there in unmoving anguish and wonder how many are feeding.

   

   

   

   

  • 12:07 pm
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