Sunday, July 22, 2007

Harry Potter and the Order of the Scorpion


I have absolutely no idea what to make of it....but this is what happened to me this morning.
I woke up and while still quite bleary eyed, reached over opened up my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. While laying in bed, propped up on pillows, I balanced the book on my chest and opened it up to where I left off last night. Started reading the prose in the upper left hand corner of the left page when I noticed some reddish words wriggling on the right hand page. "Huh? Why are there reddish words...wriggling?" sluggishly processed my coffee deprived brain. Then I slowly shifted my focus to the wriggles and the words transformed into a SCORPION skittering across the page. I slammed the book shut, ran it into the bathroom, opened the book up and gave the critter a spritz of bug spray and then took the picture below. If I were a believer in omens (Well, come to think of it sometimes I am!) I'd say this means something--but haven't a clue as to what!

4 comments:

Charles Brownstein said...

Well, if we're gonna talk omens, it's telling that a dangerous insect is inhabiting a page called "a place to hide," suggesting, perhaps, that hiding, from whatever, is not safe. There's a few others on here that come out when applying Burroughs cut-up reading to the cropping of the words on the picture, but they range from sophomoric to crackpot. That said, I do like how the words connected by the scorpion's tail & pincher read "plant false images through gritted teeth."

Anonymous said...

It means you need to get your house sprayed for pests.

;)

Larry Marder said...

<<"plant false images through gritted teeth.">>

That reminds me....I gotta do my review of "Image Comics: The Road to Independence!"

Larry Marder said...

Brian Jacoby said...
It means you need to get your house sprayed for pests.

LOL.
Scorpions are a fact of life in Phoenix particularly in new-ish housing. The scorpions have been living in the eco-system under my townhouse's foundation for however many eons and eras and it's actually amazing that only a few show up per year--particularly during the hottest of the summer months.
When I first moved to the desert--I was scared to death of them. They are incredibly nasty looking. But after I observed (in a tiny nook of corner of a stair step) a scorpion battling a spider that looked like a miniature ray harryhausen epic...I've grown to accept their right to get lost on their quest for foor or water and wander into my home.
If I see 'em--I kill 'em.
And if it sees me first--it stings me but good.
Seems like a fair bargain.
Having finally been stung by a scorpion a while back (stepping out of the shower without my glasses on...right on the big toe!) I can report that it is a peculiar sensation to have something hurt AND be numb at the same time but as far as pain goes--getting stung by various wasps in Illinois over the years was ever so much more painful.