Vermin
by Ishani Shambhobi Ghosh
The ants have taken over my bed. Things are out of control. Every morning, afternoon, and night (or whenever it is that I wake up from my fitful dreams), a stream of tiny red colons with black full-stop heads creep out of the pillow case, spill onto the sheet. I’ve just woken up from a dream about lions with woolly fur marching in the streets of a town I once lived in. The ants have a similar strut to them, as they march between the folds of my clothes, between the savannah of hair on my skin (haven’t bothered shaving in months), between the joints where I’ve allowed access to no one. Every morning (afternoon, night), I wake up with red bumps burning like acid on my forearms and inner thighs, and a scampering band of ants running for cover before a slap of hand can squash them for good.
Turn the mattress, shake out the sheets, the covers, the cases. Pour in the antiseptic liquid. Where are they coming from? Outside, the main street heaves and sputters with public buses and ambulances. A screaming siren every ten minutes threatens to explode my brain. Three weeks ago, a mega-cyclone tore down the last of the trees on the sidewalk. The roti shop downstairs still doesn’t have a new roof – business is slow. We have to cook our own rotis these days. Everyone in the house resents how I suck at it.
The ants seem to love them though. They’ll steal them right out of the hot pot if I don’t keep them wrapped in cloth. Doesn’t matter if you eat crisps in bed as you smile at colleagues over Hangout, hours changing every week like the cycle of the moon. Doesn’t matter if you make an effort for a change and seat yourself at the table in the living room, in the shadows of bottled-up anger and a loudmouth anchor calling out your anti-nationalism on the screen. The ants are all over the place – they’re having a party in here.
The kitchen is a different realm. Youngling roaches, some absolute babies, speckle the tiled floor like geometric patterns. Corners turn muddy with their droppings and carcasses. How long have I been fighting a war armed with broom, mop, and phenyl? Can’t remember – I’ve lost count since the domestic help turned up for the last time. She used to work six apartments in our building before the trains stopped. She hasn’t picked up her phone since the storm.
And while the world creates great art, great food, great literature on the internet because days have magically stretched out, I can barely keep the place clean enough to stay alive. I’ve been binge-watching Kitchen Nightmares lately. Every day, Gordon Ramsay calls me a fucking joke as another pair of curious antennae navigates the maze of my cutlery drawer like an Olympic champion. All the disinfectants of the world can’t purge this tiny kitchen. What d’you want me to do, chef? What more could I do? “Get fucking real,” he screams, “show some responsibility.” So, I show up with the broom for the fifteenth time and swat ten in one blow – enough to build a god complex for five seconds.
Back in bed, I dream about red ants carrying my baby away. I call up my friend to cry about it. “Dude, that’s Marquez,” she says. I haven’t read any Marquez so I don’t know what she’s talking about. But it’s scary, and I don’t even have children – haven’t had my periods since January, so maybe I’ll never have any. Nightmares don’t come true like that. Last week, cerulean blue langurs were riding unicycles in the street, and I prayed that the outside wouldn’t step in. But perhaps they’re really all crawling out of my crumbling head, pouring onto my pillowcase, spilling onto my sheets.
Ishani Shambhobi Ghosh lives in Kolkata, India. She has degrees in Literature and Ecology, which she hopes to put into good use some day. She also aspires to be a full-time creative writer.
