Excerpt from "The Insect Family"

by Daniel Crocker

I never tore the wings off house flies as a kid, you know, although I used to have a fetish for taking insects to the verge of death as a child. I used to to it in all kinds of creative ways -- setting earthworms on hot asphalt, then taking them off before they fried to cripst bacon. I'd set them back into the soft, cool mud to see what happened. It fascinated me to test a variety of bugs to see what kind of endruance they had, to see what kind of will to live they possessed.

Daniel Crocker
Do Not Look Directly Into Me
Short Stories. Paper, Perfect Bound
Green Bean Press, 2001
ISBN 1-89140817-8
$12 plus s&h