$35.00
**"Pheromone Lick Loop (Do Not Lick a Bug)"**
*with SPYKES “Pherophone Disrupter” one-sided picture lathe LP spinning somewhere sideways in the void*
---
The man in the carapace suit called himself **Dr. Flint**. He emerged from the dusk shadows of a mildew-slicked underpass, carrying a bulging case of lathe-cut records and a half-melted ID badge that read "INSECT ENTANGLEMENT SPECIALIST, CLASS C."
"You ever heard of antennae hypnosis?" he whispered to no one and everyone. His teeth clicked. His eyes gleamed. His hat was made of dried moth wings. “They send signals, these little arthropod fellows. Frequency-based. You tune in wrong, and you’re... modified.”
---
Downwind in a cul-de-sac of storage units and forgotten dreams, **Terra “Teeth-Tongue” Molloway** was assembling her portable PA system from a found suitcase and worm-bitten speaker cones. She had one boot on and was barefoot on the other foot, stepping lightly on a copy of *SPYKES “Pherophone Disrupter”*, its warped surface reflecting dusty constellations of antenna static. The needle of her turntable didn't play it; it *summoned it.*
A strange wind blew inward when the tonearm dropped, dragging the smell of cherry cordite and humid basement.
“Do not lick a bug,” she hissed to her own shoulder, where a phasmid resembling a rusted fork trembled with anticipation.
“Even if it’s non-toxic.”
“Even if it says please.”
“Even if it plays jazz.”
The record groaned and crackled. Not music. Not even sound. A dense radiophonic warning coiled into vibrational diagrams. It rattled your skull before it touched your ears. Someone screamed in lowercase in the background: *dooonotliiickaaaabuugg...*
---
The warning came too late for **Cud Bender**, local bug collector and part-time experimental kisser of strange matter. He had misidentified a neon-legged spiderling as a harmless “Harper’s Spinner” and gave it a courteous lick.
In response, his teeth reversed. His molars turned into tiny vibrating drums. His tongue developed spiral filaments, and he began humming at 11 kHz — *a perfect match for the Disrupter grooves*.
His face bloomed like a beetle trap.
He could no longer eat cereal without invoking *clouds of antennaed hallucinations.*
---
Dr. Flint appeared just before dawn, adjusting a wrist device covered in velvet mites.
He looked at the crowd gathering, listening to the Pherophone Disrupter’s B-side-that-didn’t-exist play a track that sounded like someone remembering how a bug *might taste* but never confirming it.
He leaned in and whispered:
> “We are not always correct.
> Even the professionals.
> Some insects, if licked,
> Will continue licking back
> From inside.”
The record ended with a dry *click*.
Terra blinked three times and her mouth unstitched.
The phasmid was gone.
But its song was inside everyone now.
A song about **why you should never lick a bug**,
even if it compliments your aura.
Even if it *asks nicely*.
---
*Edition of 1.
Found sealed in silk under a log.
Do not play near beetles.*