The Ballistic Gastropod

It's easy to ignore the small things in life. Until they become hard to ignore.

It was out there. Somewhere. And I, Dov Shannon, was worried about when it would show up. 

I know it's out there because it's one of the conditions of the $5,000,000 prize I recently collected. There were only two conditions: I would need to have a chip implanted in my neck, and that an animal of my choice would be hunting me; the chip was so that the animal would be able to track me more easily. I thought that Magic Spiral, LLC, a company all about genetic modification, had to be joking, as it was a ludicrous concept that an animal would be hunting me. However, there had been five winners and the other four were dead, all by animal attack. Four different animals (a lion, a wolf, a rattlesnake, and, somehow, a shark), sure, but each animal had been chosen by a winner. 

Remember those genetic enhancements? The lion had enhanced optics and claws. The wolf had camouflage ability. The rattlesnake had been given wings. The shark had been given lungs and legs.

I had chosen a snail. And I had no idea how it had been modified.

I figured it would be a safe option. It's slow. It's small. It would take forever to catch up to me, if it did, and if it did, what could it do?

I hadn't counted on the power of human imagination. Specifically, my own. 

Let's ignore my allergies for a moment. It's small enough that it could sneak into something I was eating and choke me. So I started eating everything through a straw. It could crawl into my mouth while I was sleeping and cut off my breathing. So I sleep with a mask. It could crawl into my mouth at any time. So the only place I feel comfortable is in a place that's all white (brown shell, right? Brown hides well against any other color, so only white backgrounds are safe, right?). And I only exercise in the pool; snails can't swim, right?

Now, let's look at my allergies: I'm deadly allergic to peanuts and shellfish. I need to carry an Eppy everywhere, especially if there's a chance I might be eating something that was even accidentally cooked on a grill where someone had used peanut oil, which is more common than you would think. And there are some restaurants that are just a nightmare, like a seafood restaurant; one of my friends couldn't understand why I just went no contact with him after the second time he invited me to a Thai place. Heck, one of my great failings as a hard-core conservationist is that I'll never be able to use an engine converted to cooking oil; I'm limited to solar power. 

Snails are shellfish. 

I thought I had been so clever in choosing such a weak creature that I had somehow overlooked that its very nature could be fatal to me. All it has to do is crawl near me and my life is in potential danger. So I can no longer enjoy a moment in the woods or even at the park unless I'm very careful to never sit down. And I can't even pull weeds out of my lawn without fearing if the weeds have been contaminated by snails. And I used to love gardening. Suffice to say that Snail B Gone is all over the place, and any lawn care service charges me extra to deal with the poison.

My life has become one of total paranoia, and that paranoia has only become more acute with each death of a fellow winner. As I'm the last, I am fully in the grip of that paranoia. I only work from home and I only leave for very limited reasons. I even have my groceries delivered, followed by a thorough inspection of the ordered foods, with produce being washed just so I can be sure it doesn't have snail slime on it. Even the inside of my house has changed as everything is white, either bought that way or painted that way. 

 It may be paranoia, but at least I can sleep at night. 

 * * * * *

 Notes from the desk of Doctor Johannes Watt:

The bombardier snail is a success. By combining the chemical mixing process of the bombardier beetle with the chassis of a common snail, we have created what is essentially a miniature tank. By enhancing the chemicals normally found in the organs of the beetle, even a garden snail can be dangerous to the average human. While the military applications are limited due to potential war crimes violations, it should be ideal for dealing with diseased crops or forced burns. We just need to find a way to find a way for it to launch its attack at our command.