“
-jeez, these guys, with their on-again, off-again relationships, lutgen said;
-Yeah, Dave said: now you see them, now you see them once more;
-They're virtual insects!, Jurgen said;
-Virtually innumerable, said Dave;
-I wonder, though, if we haven't got it wrong, Jurgen said: I mean, I wonder if maybe these guys' natural condition isn't to be lit up-if their ground state isn't actually when they're glowing;
-Hm, said Dave: so what they're actually doing is turning off their lights
-Right: momentarily going under;
-Flashing darkness
-Projecting their inner voids
-Their repeating, periodic depressions ...
-So then, I suppose, we should really call them douse bugs---;.
-Exactly...
-Or nature's faders---;.
-Flying extinguishers
-Buzzing snuffers-!
-Or maybe
-Or maybe, despite what it looks like, maybe they really are glowing constantly, Jurgen said: but, through some malign unknown mechanism, their everlasting light is periodically swallowed up by un-understood atmospheric forces;
-So then they're being occluded
-Rudely occluded
-Denied their God-given right to shine ...
-So that, I suppose, would make them-o horror-victims
-Yeah: victims of predatory darkness
-Of uncontrollable flares of night;
-So it isn't bioluminescence, but eco-eclipsis
-Exactly: ambient effacement
-Nature's station-identification
-Ongoing lessons in humility ...
-In fact, that might explain the nits' efficiency factor, Jurgen Said: you know, these guys burn so cleanly that they produce what's known in the trade as cold light they put together this real slow oxidation reaction within these little cell-structures called photocytes, using a really weird enzyme and substrate that're, like, named for the devil; and the result is virtually 100% efficient: almost no heat is lost at all...
-So, in fact, these folks should be our heroes
-Exactly: our role models
-Our ego ideals---;.
-Hosts of syndicated talk shows
-Spokes-things for massive advertising campaigns---;.
-In fact, children should be forced to leave their families and go be raised by them-MacArthur winners, all...
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