Myrmecophobia

Fiction | Assignment

I

They sort of meet in two lines at a crack in the bricks just below the drinking fountain. I had spent recess following a single one of them going down the line, bumping into her sisters, going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, finding her way through.

The first line led me to an open pack of sultanas on the tennis courts, and the other winded up the gym wall. I tried to see where that one led, but I couldn't get up that high.

Poor ants, I think, swarming in and out of the crack in the wall. Anna once showed me an image of an ant nest—those rounded chambers and branching tunnels—aand it reminded me of those diagrams of lung alveoli we saw in health class. I imagine slicing open the bricks and uncovering the nest inside. My skin wriggles.

Poor ants, swerving back and forth, never actually knowing where they're going.

II

i cant even hear anything over the music which is really really frustrating and i think if they just played the music a bit quieter it would be ok but then again thats probably not even the real issue (real issue?) because even if i could hear what alex was saying i dont know that id be able to contribute or that id have anything to say in the first place because i never seem to have anything to say (whats the word? hollow> threatening to cave in?) but at least it would make it easier to pay attention. pay attention. your mind is wandering. wandering, wondering what alex is saying. what is alex saying? i cant hear. i cant hear anything with this music which is super duper frustrating but i think if they just played it a teensy weensy bit quieter i would be okay but maybe im hard of hearing because when i was younger i got a wax buildup in my right ear it felt like there was dirt cramped tight in the ear canal (did you know mars has canals?) and it hurt a lot whenever i pressed on it so they (what was his name?) stuck a tiny little jet in my ear and sprayed it with water until the blockage came loose but until they did that it hurt a lot and made it hard to hear or pay attention. pay attention your mind is wondering. weve been here before (what is alex saying?). i feel like a fly on the wall. i dont know. i dont know.

III

Anna said that to get over my fear of ants I should stick my hand in an ant hill. There was one just on the edge of the oval where the dirt was dusty and the grass didn't grow. She said this was perfectly safe because the kinds of ants we have in Coburg don't sting and don't have acid, so it would tickle a little, but it wouldn't hurt, not really.

They were all over my arm and up my sleeve and I could feel it. I felt the muscles in my arm twitch under their legs—I felt them crawl into my armpits and up my neck and down my chest and even into my ears and Anna just kept laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing. They were everywhere. For days I was paralysed thinking that I'd find them in my clothes or my bed or my notebooks.

Or even in my food. I couldn't stand eating because I always thought, "What if there's ants in there?" My mum would try to make me eat a spoonful at a time, but I was having none of it, so sometimes she'd just have to throw my dinner out.

Other times I'd stand naked after a shower and pick through my skin looking for ants. I was cold and wet, but I didn't mind because the alternative was risking an ant showing up the one time I didn't check.

I was really angry at Anna after that but I never told her, and then she moved schools. The nurse asked why I had stuck my arm in an ant hill. I didn't know what to tell her, so I just said, "I don't know."

IV

aksdjhfgajhsdf my legs itch so bad and i really really wish june were here its always easier when hes here. he always knows how to include me (how to include me? do people have to put in effort to include me?) he always explains thigns and knows when i dont and he always goes wit me but hes not here tonight. i dont know why i hadnt asked him beforehand (i hadn t texted him in a while why was that? ic ant remember) but hes not here and thats a fact (godddd d why do my legs itch?). its like somethings pinching at my skin or or perhaps its my fault perhaps i should just say something contribute (what was that?) or perhaps if june were just here but perhaps if the music were gone or perhaps i whats the word perhaps i um... food. food on the table (inside). Natural Confectionery Co.™ Party Mix i snatch a gummy snake and go back to alex but junes not there (wheres june again?) and i hold it with two hands between my chipped nailp olish and bite its head off like im a praying mantis. and i think this will disrtact me while i try to figure out what to say but i cant hear anything over the music which is starting to really realyl bug me so the snake is gone in less than a minute and i go back to the table (inside) but then then no no actually (i know now) if i keep doing this ill never get a h andle on what alex is saying but then again im already so so so lost (and why do my legs itch? should i not have worn tights today?) so perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps another snake another snake but another one would mkae me feel fat and gross fat and grsos fat and gross fat and gross and i look at the Party Mix (how many calories?) and i really miss when i wasnt fat and gross when i was skinny and id look myself down in the shower and see my ribcage through the skin, but then i got fat again fat and skinny fat and skinny back and forth back and i really miss food and god god god it itches and god god just bite my head clean off like a praying mantis.

V

I've always thought they were a little uncanny. Once when I was a kid I accidentally stepped on one in the backyard and watched as its friends gathered around it. They didn't carry it off. They didn't do much of anything really. They just surrounded it and blindly groped about with their antennae. Uncanny, their opaque black eyes. Uncanny, their tiny constricted bodies.

One of them crawled up on my leg and I felt it inch its way between the hairs. It felt so gross, like a muscle had cramped and pinched at the skin, so I picked it off.

When I told Anna about this she said that it was weird, because ants usually carry their dead away and bury them. I think she must have made that up though because I can't imagine those ants even really understood that the other one was dead. I saw a close-up picture of an ant once and thought about how creepy it was that you could see the exoskeleton over their skin.

Perhaps the colony was larger than I thought. Perhaps that crack in the wall, which I could barely fit two fingers into, led somewhere else, underground, out of the school, across the city. Perhaps the colony spanned the entirety of Melbourne. I couldn't know. People never notice ants. They step over ant trails all the time without noticing. Once while falling asleep in English class I saw an ant crawling up my teacher's arm, and I thought first, "How did it possibly get there?" and then, "How hasn't my teacher noticed yet?" People talk about being a fly on the wall, but people notice flies. They don't notice ants. Their trails lather every inch of the ground, the walls, the city, the classroom. Like shadowy vines. They swarm about, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I don't think the ants notice themselves either.

VI

all my friends (friends?) are gone even alex i don t know where i think they mentioend the park (theres a park near here?) so maybe theyre smoking but i dont want to assume so anyways now i dont have anyone to follow around (follow around? isnt that pathetic?) why cant i just start a conversation like they do in the movies (MOVE! SLIDE TO THE LEFT! SLIDE TO THE RIGHT! ONE STOMP THIS TIME!) theres ella but its not like ive ever acutalyl spoken to ella (thats her name right?) she probably thinks im fat and gross and it would just be awkward shes in the middle of a covnersation with grace (what if its like a really personal conversation?) and i cant hear anything over the music which is super duper frustrating (really really frustrtaing) and god what am i doing where am i going. i am going to the bathroom. close the door close the door music music you can still hear the music (whats this song called?) but its better and muffled and breathe. breathe. they taught you this in health class. four seconds in. hold. four seconds out. picture the air filling your lungs. in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out. what was i saying? oh god, yes, my legs itch so bad i shouldnt have worn tights today because theyre so tight and look you can see my legs, fat and gross aritculated in and out, but even if i was skinny it d look uncanny and i know that. god. i look back at the bathroom door and i see them. i see them. in my minds eye, shadows under everyones feet like wriggling vines, piles and piles and piles and piles building up on the floor. it is what it has always been. ants and ants and ants and ants and (how is it that nobody notices them?) the itch is not an itch, they re under the skin trying to get out and in out and in out and in out and in. i think i am being buried. whats the word. whats the word. there is a mound of ants groping about blindly. they crawl into my eyes and my ears and make burrows in the alveoli of my lungs, they crawl inside the hollow where my brain used to be. i think i am dying. are you? i dont know. i dont know (terminal lucidity?). i know that june isn t here and that alex is gone and that anna is gone and that i cant hear anythign over the stup id ants ants ants ants the ants and i the ants and i the ants and i go back. and forth and forth back and forth back and forth between whether i am the ant or the colony, back and forth back and forth back and forth back and forth.