Swarms
A short-short story
It started with just one unusually large wasp, redder than the usual. A man walking through a park in Madison, Wisconsin waved it away but it zoomed right back and stung him. That hurt even more than the usual wasp bite. Then another wasp stung him, and another, and another. Soon a swarm surrounded him, stung and stung him, and he died.
Jonah Weiss, a private entomologist in Madison had set up Google alerts on the term “insect” so he quickly learned about the stinging death. He drove to the site, took a picture of the insect, and ChatGPT5, which can read images, immediately identified it as vespidae horribilis, better known in its native Paraguay as avispón de terror, roughly translated, the Horror Hornet. It had rarely been seen north of Venezuela…until now. Weiss reported it to the Centers for Disease Control. He had to leave a message and didn’t get a call back.
By the time the week was up, 127 people had died, all in Midwestern parks, and it was front-page news. President Harris appeared on CNN: “We are marshaling all possible taxpayer resources to stop this before it becomes the insect equivalent of another COVID: the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Public Health Service, their state equivalents, and the World Health Organization. All 127 victims died in parks from Western Pennsylvania to Western Colorado. So for now, we are closing all parks except those within 100 miles of the East or West coasts.”
Mobs consisting largely of Republicans protested — Harris, you’re just protecting your beloved coastal liberal cities” — and one mob torched a government building.
But in the next week, there were 1,458 cases, most of the new ones on the coasts. President Harris got back on TV: “Our top scientists and public health officials urge that we close all parks nationwide. We hope to reopen them as soon as the experts say it’s safe.”
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Massive protests, some would say riots, ensued. Placards read, “Not another COVID lockdown!” One speaker’s quote was broadcast endlessly on conservative media: “We spend billions of our taxpayer money on all you experts and bureaucrats, and you can’t get rid of a fly?!”
The government’s entomologists and toxicologists gathered detailed data about each victim and each of the thousands of hornets they captured. The major media kept showing the picture of a woman in a hazmat suit surrounded by hornets as she collected them for study. The government held daily press conferences that portrayed a message that implied progress. And grasping for good news, they said that their massive effort has found what they believe is Nest Zero. But when a reporter asked, “Does that get us closer to figuring out how to stop the swarm deaths?” the lead scientist turned to the other panelists, who looked blank, and said, “We’ll keep you posted.”
Indeed, privately, the scientists’ meetings with the public health officials were filled with uncertainty, which bred contentiousness. For example, a specialist in public mental health seethed, “What do you mean, we have to keep the parks closed and you have no idea for how long?” Don’t you realize that parks keep people healthy? Life is stressful, especially for the poor. For them, parks are among their few escapes from the systemic racism that keeps people of color from rising from multi-generational poverty!” Other committee members considered dissenting but decided it was prudent to remain silent.
The scientists had sprayed some of the collected hornets with low-toxicity pyrethrins, which is derived from the chrysanthemum, but that killed only 3.4% of the wasps. But the Subcommittee on Horror Hornet Eradication included leaders from the Environmental Protection Agency, refused to authorize use of the only spray that would eradicate most of the hornets, the long-banned DDT. None of that was discussed in the press conferences. The government’s PR team advised, “Discussing that in public will just muddy the message, foment more anxiety, and spill over into more violence against the government.”
A year passed and the hornet deaths stayed at around 500 a day. Then suddenly, without explanation, the hornet attacks declined and declined until the rate was baseline.
At that point, President Harris got on TV, declared victory and the parks reopened. She added that she is issuing an Executive Order creating a new agency, the National Entomological Public Health Agency.
Every time Jonah Weiss checked his email, every time his phone rang, every time he looked at his texts, he was wondering if it was an invitation to join the new agency. He had mixed feelings about working in government, but especially in light of his rapid, no-cost response to the first hornet death, he would feel good to be asked. He’s still waiting.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
Dr. Marty Nemko is a career and personal coach. He’s also the author of 34 books, including, Soloists: Short-short stories of introverts and outsiders facing a dilemma. You can reach Marty at mnemko@comcast.net.
