Macro Monday Brings The Tale Of The Mantis And The Serpent

See anything in that photo?

Sure, sure, you see a praying mantis.

But look again.

Up from the mantis. Up, up, up.

Yeah, now you see it.

I didn’t see it when I first stopped to take a cameraphone pic of the mantis — that photo there is not the camera pic, by the by, but from my DSLR — and it was only as I got in close did I see the garter snake scoping out Princess Stinky, the Mantisfriend. I was like, shit, this is a literal metaphor playing out — a snake in the goddamn grass, would you look at that.

I figured, oh, well, nature red in fang and mandible, and I assumed that some Mother Nature was about to happen and the mantis was gonna get got. But then I wondered: hey, some mantids can eat birds, and maybe this little green lady can like, do some Mantis Martial Arts and crush the snake’s head with one of its spiky limbs? Shit, who knows. Nature is fucked up.

I revisited the scene again and again — the snake crept closer and closer. The mantis seemed vaguely aware of it. And then — the snake retreated? To the bottom of the grass, here:

So eventually they just faced away from each other like a pair of roommates who were irritated at one another. And then eventually the snake slithered away and the mantis remained. And remains still — I just passed her on the way here. (I assume it might be a her — she’s getting kinda bulbous, which is usually a sign of a lady mantis, not a dude mantis.) Rosemary Mosco on Twitter pointed out too that the snake’s eye is blue, which is a potential sign that it is

a) ready to molt

and

b) possibly half-blind for the moment until it molts

So, maybe the snake was never scoping out the mantis. Maybe it was asking for directions.

Nature. Like I said: fucked up. Even snakes get lost!

Let’s see, do I have any book news?

Yes!

Wait, is it anything I can share?

Shit, I can’t talk about this comic book, or this other secret thing, or… ennh, anything else?

Wanderers has a loose release date, now — July 2019? So, less than a year, now. Some Station Eleven slash The Stand epic-sized goodness coming your way, then, but for now, the long wait until release… it’s killing me because I want you to have it now?

But we will all just have to be patient.

I think that’s it for today.

GO FORTH AND SLAY MONDAY, FRANDOS