[clarinet music]
The majestic butterfly.
The harmonious cricket.
The awkward katydid.
In recent days, these and other insects around the world
have fallen prey to disease that cannot be explained by modern science.
This butterfly has grown naturally into the final stage of its life cycle.
But now, infected by chronological reversal,
it has begun to move and even age backwards,
first into a cocoon, and from there, to a caterpillar.
This newly regressed creature spends its days regurgitating
onto the leaves that it chewed up the first time around
until, finally, it shrinks back into an egg.
Now we encounter a friendly grasshopper,
eating its fill of bamboo.
He, too, is affected by chronological reversal.
He grows smaller by the day, stalking the forest backwards for his old, shed husks.
Once they are found, he attempts to force himself back inside them,
and then continues on his way,
trailing pieces of dead exoskeleton behind him.
This healthy praying mantis was fed an infected moth.
As he feeds, the disease begins to take its old.
Soon enough, the eating process starts to reverse.
His mandibles reconfigure the moth's wing,
and he places it back onto the body.
Strangely, ants are affected very differenty by the disease.
Some scientists hypothesize that the colony's hiveline
interferes with the disease's backwards imperative.
This ant does not fully reverse its movements,
but instead shudders and starts, apparently drawn
by two competing impulses.
This honeybee was infected toward the end of its daily routine.
It now traces its steps, visiting flowers it had recently pollinated.
When it returns to its hive, it will perform its dance of identification backwards,
prompting its immediate execution.
Plants, too, are susceptible to chronological reversal.
The flowers the bee had visited will close up and drop back into the ground.
They will end their lives as mere seedlings.
Infected lice return blood to their hosts
Infected mosquitos do the same.
If you've been bitten by a mosquito recently,
be very careful:
this may happen to you.
When the government's pesticide trucks and planes
enter your neighborhood, be sure to close all windows and doors,
and keep all pets and infants close.
With luck, we will soon be free of this backwards epidemic.
[clarinet music]