O City God, both of us have duties to perform in this county: resisting disasters that may occur, offering protection in times of trouble, such things are inn the City God's spiritual realm and are part of the official's responsibilities. This year, while the workers were out in the fields but the grain had not yet matured, the eggs that had been laid by last year's locusts hatched out in the soil, causing almost half the wheat crops in the countryside to suffer this affliction. In The last days yet more locusts have come from our neighboring area to the southwest: their trembling wings stretch in unbroken lines, they fill in the furrows and cover the ridges of the fields. The people scurry and wail, as if the end of the world were come.

We have already prayed to the City God, but he did not destroy the locusts. Could this possibly have been because it was too hard for him to save us from this natural calamity? Or because the Ch'ing-ming festival was near at hand? If not for those reasons, then was it because the officials had failed in their duties, and lacked the sincerity to reach the underworld? The people could not repel this calamity, so they appealed to the officials for help. The officials could not repel this calamity for the people, so they pray to the City God. The City God is majestic on high;could He not transmit these prayers from the people and from their officials, and petition the Lord of All? The people think that the spread of this disaster is unavoidable, for as the locusts advance they cover an area of over a thousand li, in the midst of which T'an-ch'eng is but a tiny spot, so how could they be chased away just from here? They say this because they have no remedy if they use human means. But that is not true of the City God. From his vantage point he can anticipate the needs of the people and officials, and feel sorrow for their sufferings.

O God, drive them away quickly! Do not let them destroy our crops of grain! Do not let them lay their eggs in our fields! Then will the people have an autumn harvest. God grant this. God heed our request.

There Goes My Everything

From The New York Review Of Books:

To understand the full extent of the constraints that the abyss places on life, consider the black seadevil. It's a somber, grapefruit-sized globe of a fish--seemingly all fangs and gape--with a "fishing rod" affixed between its eyes whose luminescent bait jerks above the trap-life mouth. Clearly, food is a priority for this creature, for it can swallow a victim nearly as large as itself. But that is only half the story, for this description pertains solely to the female: the male is a minnow-like being content to feed on specks in the sea--until, that is, he encounters his sexual partner.
The first time that a male black seadevil meets his much larger mate, he bites her and never lets go. over time, his veins and arteries grow together with hers, until he becomes a fetus-like dependent who receives from his mate's blood all the food, oxygen, and hormones he requires to exist. The cost of this utter dependence is a loss of function in all of his organs except his testicles, but even these, it seems, are stimulated to action solely at the pleasure of the engulfing female. When she has had her way with him, the male simply vanishes, having been completely absorbed and dissipated into the flesh of his paramour, leaving her free to seek another mate. Not even Dante imagined such a fate.