Author: Alzo David-West

We were all enjoying a day on the beach. The sun was bright, and the water was cool. People were laughing and swimming. People were sunbathing and picnicking under umbrellas. People were having a fun day.

Then slowly, there it was, a dark cloud over the distant waves on the horizon. The weather forecast didn’t say anything about rain. The cloud came closer. Not many people noticed at first, and those that did thought it was just curious.

But then the cloud wasn’t a cloud. It was dragonflies — swarms and swarms of dragonflies buzzing about, bumping into things, flying all over the place, hitting people in the water, and hitting people on the sand.

Swimmers started running ashore. Children and women were screaming and grown men, too. Some people were still sitting, recording the scene, taking selfies, sending messages, and searching their smartphone apps to figure out what was going on.

I guessed, probably as several others did, that the swarm was an insect migration, and the dragonflies had gotten lost. I searched on my smartphone like the old grey-headed man next to me was doing, sitting on a blanket, with his old wife lying down, trying to sun her back.

The news said the dragonflies were everywhere. Social media alerts and social influencers reported dragonfly clouds all across the country. Emergency conferences with meteorologists and insectologists were livestreamed, but the experts and specialists couldn’t explain the “entomological anomaly” that was happening.

More and more dragonflies were coming, and the situation was turning dangerous. People were getting struck in the eye. Some went blind. Others choked on the dragonflies. People couldn’t drive with dragonflies raining on their windshields.

There were accidents and crashes and turnovers on highways and sidewalks. There were explosions. States of emergency were declared in townships and city centers nationwide, yet there was nothing the National Guard or the Army could do.

The president rapidly issued an executive order for the pest-control and fumigation industries to work with the Air Force, and 24/7 extermination initiatives were launched by every state government on the continental landmass.

More dragonflies came. Demoralized and frustrated senators, governors, and mayors were motioning to release drone bombs and drop fire bombs and atom bombs to stop the dragonfly invasion. Those demands were too extreme, but they gave lots of people an idea.

Men, women, and kids in towns and cities — even big cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago — started making smoke bombs, pressure-cooker bombs, and bonfires for the fireballs and white and black smoke to repel the dragonflies. Great fires started to break out uncontrollably, some by accident and others intentionally. Pandemonium let loose as the fires raged from sea to sea.

Soon enough, all sorts of individuals and groups began crawling out of the woodwork — crime gangs, fascist killers, lone wolves, religious cults, secessionist rebels, terrorist radicals, vigilante punishers — all vying for power and control, all because the dragonflies came.

The dragonflies kept coming for days and days, months and months, and they never stopped, except briefly in the winter. The next wave was worse.

Now’s over a year. America is a third-world war zone. State and local governments have collapsed. Nowhere’s safe. Children can’t go on the streets alone. Day and night are death sentences. People hide in their homes. There’s no more food.

Emergency aid is slowly on its way from Africa, Asia, and Europe, but nothing’s guaranteed. The dragonflies are still coming. They’re still coming.

There’s thunder in the air.