Nigel was reading about the growing threat posed by invasive species. Climate change and weak biosecurity seemed to be the major causes. One social media post reported sightings of a parasitic wasp which, if left unchecked, could wipe out the country’s bumble bee population. Campaigners claimed that the government was supressing information about the seriousness of the crisis. While he was looking at a butterfly feeding on the lavender bush near his chair a strange insect settled on his knee. It looked like a kind of hornet, long and thin, with an orange thorax. He had never seen anything like it before, and wondered if this was an example of what he’d been reading about. His first impulse was to crush it, but there was something oddly mechanical about it which made him hesitate. It looked like a miniature drone. Was it living or manufactured? Surveillance was on the increase everywhere, he’d heard. Could it be something even more disturbing than a migrant wasp? Was someone spying on him?
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Simon Collings
Picture Nick Victor
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