Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I ate a bug like a cricket or something, something ordinary, that people all around the world eat, and it’s just a really good source of protein. But that’s not what happened at all. I didn’t just eat an ordinary Earthly bug.

I ate a Bug. A Bug with a capital B.

I should probably start at the beginning, but I have to tell you, I’m not entirely sure where this story starts. I mean, maybe when the little meteorites started falling? Not the usual meteorite shower, though. At least according to the news. But at the time, I had other things to worry about, so I didn’t pay that much attention. It just sounded like there were more of them than normal? Or maybe they were so small they should have been burning up in the atmosphere so everyone was surprised a lot of them were making it all the way down to the ground?

Yeah, that sounds familiar. I think that’s what the talking heads had been worrying about.

So much has happened since then. Honestly, it was just a few months ago, but it feels like twenty years.

So the news had these stories, buried under political scandal headlines and the latest celebrity gossip, about an unusual meteor shower and all the tiny little rocks falling to earth when they should have burned up. And this story went by me with only minimal notice because I had just lost my job as a dog walker for a small Manhattan company, the rent was due in two weeks, and none of my fallback options—working at the local coffee shop; fast food restaurant; delivery driver—were hiring.

Losing my job wasn’t my fault. I have to say that here. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know Mitsy had found and eaten a bone off the sidewalk. I always pay attention to what the dogs are doing and make sure not to let them eat street crap. I have no idea how Mitsy snuck that bone past me. The poodle is pretty smart, but still. I would have noticed her chewing on it. I swear, she picked it up sometime after I dropped her home. But I got blamed for the subsequent barffest all over the client’s multimillion dollar couch. And that was my job gone.

I was considering going to a temp agency despite my fervent desire to never work in an office again. It was that bad. I mean, I would rather walk other people’s dogs and clean up the strange dog’s stinking poop than work in an office again. Even in New York City on a hot, muggy August day when the stench of traffic overwhelmed the smell of tree pollen that sent my allergies skyrocketing, I’d still rather be outside with the dogs. But office work was starting to look like my only option. You’d be surprised how tough some of the minimum wage jobs are to get…

Anyway, I’ve gotten a little off point here, haven’t I?

Okay, so I was job hunting. Just minding my own business. Hoping I could cover the ConEd next month if I kept my air-conditioner turned off despite the heat. And the world erupted into mayhem. Like serious, never-thought-I’d-live-through-it chaos. An actual, honest to God, alien invasion.

And like, who thinks they’ll really have to live through that? No one. That’s why there are movies and books about alien invasions. Because we don’t honestly think we’ll really have to live through something like that.

But here we are. Smack in the middle of an alien invasion. And of course the aliens are Bugs. I mean, just… I would have laughed from the cliché of it all if the stupid buggers hadn’t been invading my planet and causing such upheaval.

Now, here’s the thing. They weren’t trying to take over the human race or anything. In fact, we weren’t even of interest to them. And not because the Bugs were like viruses or bacteria or some other thing that wasn’t cognizant, just going about their biology and we got in the way. Okay, well actually sort of that last part was happening. But the Bugs knew what they were doing. They landed on this planet on purpose. They’d built their little space crafts and headed this way because this planet had something they wanted.

And the fact that there were these hulking Earth animals called humans who thought and talked and invented stuff and had lives even if some of them didn’t have jobs at the moment, none of that mattered to the Bugs. They just wanted what they wanted. Everything else on Earth be damned.

They didn’t try to fight with us either. They didn’t have, like, human-scorching weapons or anything. This was not the invasion pictured in science fiction. But it wasn’t, like, say locus blanketing the planet either. Again, it wasn’t just a species living out their biology without menace and we got in the way. The Bugs were living out their biology here, but there was menace involved too.

They invaded, literally, to destroy—and you’re not going to believe this—to destroy every living cetacean on the planet. That’s right. They invaded to destroy the dolphins.

You couldn’t write this stuff.

And we couldn’t exactly ask the dolphins why the Bugs hated them since we’ve never learned how to speak dolphin. I’ve heard some humans did try asking the Bugs—who could communicate with us, and isn’t that just a we’re-smarter-than-you sort of move?—but the Bugs said, “They know what they’ve done. Our species will conquer and survive!” And that’s all they’d say about it.

So how did humans figure into all this as far as the Bugs were concerned? They didn’t. The Bugs didn’t give two flying fucks about us. We were a nuisance species, and they even told us to just stand aside while they’d destroy their sworn enemies—the dolphins!—and then they’d leave.

Now, you’re not gonna believe this either, but a lot of assholes actually said we should allow this. That we should just let the aliens kill off all the dolphins and whales and leave and then get on with our lives. Can you believe that? Can you even comprehend how selfish and ignorant? I couldn’t. I mean, I don’t have a super high opinion of people. Okay, my opinion of the human race is pretty bad. I’m a cynic. But still. The DOLPHINS! It’s like saying, yeah, let’s let the aliens destroy all the pet dogs and cats and hamsters and stuff and then leave. You really just going to let aliens snuff your pet and then move on with your life?

Yeah, I know dolphins aren’t pets. That’s not the point. They’re a part of our world and a magnificent part at that, and really, this is our world. If anyone’s going to kill off entire species it should be us. Not that I want that. I’m just saying.

Anyway, so there was a lot of human debate all around the planet, and while the assholes were yelling at each other, the aliens went to war against the Earth’s cetacean populations. And well, this just did not go over well with some of us.

A resistance formed. An actual Resistance. To fight for the lives of the dolphins (and whales—you get the point).

We armed up at first with bug spray because, well… Sentient Bugs. What do you think of first? Bug spray. But apparently space travel helped them build up a healthy natural defense against our ordinary poisons. Staying viable against all that radiation really strengthened their physiology.

So then we tried biological warfare, thinking we could give the Bugs some of our more virulent viruses. That didn’t work either. We couldn’t make the viruses jump species on purpose. Sure, viruses are happy to do that in their own time, but when we could really use their help, where are they? Nowhere. Just sticking to what they know best.

Next, we tried more conventional stuff like guns and flamethrowers, but I gotta tell you, bullets are useless against Bugs. They’re too damned small. Even the best shot couldn’t actually hit one. Plus, they move really fast and just dodged out of the way even if a bullet might have gotten close to them. And yes, we tried buckshot. That was also a nope. The pellets scattered, the Bugs dodged, ducked, and dove away, and all we got were a lot of tiny holes in the background scenery.

We finally gave up on the guns after we accidentally sank a Resistance boat. Or four.

That was the other complication. Trying to fight the Bugs out on the ocean. Humans have not built the sort of weaponry that would allow for fighting tiny insects in the ocean. We’ve always aimed at larger things and only killed the small stuff on accident.

Shockwaves, electromagnetic pulses, freezing, fire, various chemical agents, we tried it all. (No, we didn’t try radiation. See above surviving space travel.) Nothing worked. The bloody Bugs were nearly indestructible.

And they were just slaughtering the dolphins, despite the resistance mounted by the cetacean population. We tried coordinating our efforts with the dolphins. That didn’t work out so well because of the communication issues, but we tried.

And we failed. A lot.

It was getting so bad, we were starting to think we’d lose. The Bugs would destroy all cetaceans, and the assholes who said we should allow it would claim some sort of moral victory over us. But what if the Bugs did succeed? The ecosystems of all Earth oceans would be decimated. There was just no way to calculate how bad that would have been for all of us on this planet.

Also, what if the Bugs decided we were a threat? I mean, we still don’t know what they have against the dolphins. We do know they’re perfectly capable of mass destruction, though, so really, we couldn’t just let this invasion go.

The problem was we had nothing that killed the Bugs. Or so we thought. And then, one day, purely on accident, we discovered the secret.

Stomach acid.

Human stomach acid.

Yes, the Bugs had all kinds of resistance to all kinds of other poisons and acids and things, but it turns out that the specific balance and configuration of human stomach acid is deadly to them. I’m not the biologist in the group, so I don’t really get the details. I just know it works.

How we found out on accident…? Well, let’s just say that poor Randal picked a hell of a time to contract a stomach flu and toss up his cookies.

So that was it. We had the answer. Except, I don’t know about you, but I really hate throwing up. I just can’t. I will walk over glass and dip my feet in salt and lemon juice before throwing up if I have any say in the matter at all.

But the Bugs were winning. This was a matter of life or death. We had to use this one weapon we had against them.

Turns out, I’m not the only human who isn’t good at throwing up on command, though.

The answer, like the weapon itself, was discovered on accident. And I had the “honor” of making that discovery.

We were fighting with the Bugs, they were swarming, there was shouting and yelling. The seas were heaving with leaping, breeching cetaceans. There was even a giant blue whale involved in that fight, slapping at the Bugs like they were…bugs, and taking out hundreds at a time. But the little bastards just kept coming, kept rising every time they were knocked down. Nothing we did stopped them. Blood filled the seas, cetacean blood, human blood. The sounds of screaming filled the sharp, salty South Pacific air. Storm clouds built overhead, threatening a seething storm that would hamper us and not slow the Bugs down even a little bit.

I was shouting to Josephine to move the boat around because there were some big swells coming in—at that point it was impossible to tell if it was natural ocean waves or the result of so much cetacean activity, but that didn’t matter. We were about to be swamped and if we didn’t move quick, the boat would capsize.

I was shouting over the sounds of screaming, and splashing, and yelling, and the sharp crack of thunder too close for comfort. And I just…

Ate a Bug.

It was an accident. The little winged alien flew into my mouth, probably thrown off course by the winds, and I closed my mouth and swallowed. Reflexively. I didn’t even realize what I’d done until the Bug had already gone down.

Everyone on deck froze. I froze. It felt like the world around us froze, though I was vaguely aware that the battle continued.

I kept expecting something truly awful to happen. The Bug to shoot its way out of my chest like something from a horror movie. A scratching and clawing that tore up my insides as it moved back up my esophagus to escape. My entire body to explode from some as of yet unused secret Bug weapon.

Nothing.

Nothing bad happened.

I stood there for a long moment, feeling my stomach gurgle a little as it digested my unintentional snack. Then I belched. Which was pretty gross because it tasted like nothing you’d want to taste, and I’m not going to describe how disgusting it was.

That was it. The Bug was gone.

The tiny aliens buggered off a few minutes later, leaving us bleeding and wrecked but still alive to fight another day.

And fight we will.

We have the answer now. We know what to do. We’ll use this new weapon in our very next confrontation with the alien invaders. We will win this war, banishing this threat to our planet. And we’ll do it with what we do best. Eat!

After, of course, we make sure I don’t die from “food” poisoning.