Parasite’s Grief 

 
Parasite's Grief is a story of love, loss, and symbiosis. The story is exploring the spectrum of parasitism – a connection in which the parasite profits from the host – and mutualism, a mutual interaction from which both partners benefit – through the eyes of two symbionts. Anthropocentric understandings of symbiosis tend to frame it as a black-and-white concept, either collaboration or competition. The true story is murkier. How do creatures exist together, sharing resources and bodies, outside of humans' transactional view of nature? When its host dies, does a parasite grieve?  
 
The science-fiction short-story was first published in Fatal Flaw in 2024. It was selected for the anthology ECO24: Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction, by Apex Books and Violet Lichen Press (US), coming out late 2025.