Member-only story
Limos Rises Again
Small things matter; they always have
2052.
They predicted the oceans would do us in. No. It was the bees.
It was the flies. It was all the creepy crawlers we swatted away mindlessly before the Fall. Most imagined the end would come barreling out of the sky. Or else some forgotten primordial beast would lumber out of the ocean and consume us for our transgressions against nature.
Our demise was far more ironic. One day, the inane buzzing simply stopped — then the entire world collapsed.
Across the globe, the insect phyla imploded without cause or explanation. In the most catastrophic extinction event since the dinosaurs, ten quintillion bugs died off. I couldn’t even write that figure down if you asked.
In the beginning, many people rejoiced. No cockroaches or mosquitoes? Sounds like a party to me! In time, they learned what they should have sooner. Small things matter; they always have.
Without bees, the world experienced a ninety percent drop in agricultural production. No dung beetles signalled elevated nitrogen levels in waste which stifled plant growth in the remaining 10 percent. Our shit literally started killing us.
The insect extinction meant rodents and small creatures starved to death. The animals…
