Breadcrumb #574
JENNIFER HON KHALAF
When Ness saw the first moth flutter out from the pantry, it was unimportant. In fact, it could have been sweet, pretty; a muted butterfly of sorts. She swatted its wings away from her face. Rob was due to come over in a few minutes and she needed to get the pasta into water so that dinner would be ready for him.
After dinner, they settled into the couch with some chocolates to watch a movie. Tonight it was her choice, something characterized by Netflix as a "dark romantic drama with a strong female lead". Apparently, this is who she is and what she likes. Being a dark romantic drama, the light flickered only intermittently from the television. At one point, her chocolate bonbon was illuminated - small spots dotting its surface.
"Why are there holes in my chocolate?" Rob didn’t turn his head from the fight unfolding onscreen, so she pushed the bonbon in front of his eyes which squinted and focused.
"Hm… that doesn't look right."
They paused the show and walked into the kitchen, turning on the light so that Rob could investigate,. He set the chocolate on the cutting board, slicing it in half. Something fluttered. Dimly, she could see a small white creature, wriggling in pain from being slashed in half. More holes drilled the inside, forming tunnels in and out.
"Looks like larva of some kind."
She couldn't speak and found that her hands were raised, covering her mouth.
"Well, what do you want to do?" Rob turned to look at her when she said nothing, her eyes widening when they met his. "How many did you eat?"
She could only raise her left hand, five fingers up. She could have been waving,demanding a high five, telling Rob to stop the interrogation, or admitting that she had eaten five pieces. Either way, she walked off to the bedroom to burrow into the sheets and curl up, feeling a churning nausea, trying to forget the translucent wriggling of the broken worm.
"Whoo!” exclaimed Rob. “At least we don't have to finish that boring movie!"
Ness dreamt of larvae boring holes. They tunneled through the walls, dropping onto the floor, traveling through pantries, only to keep on with the incessant tunneling straight through the floors. IWhere she was standing they kept on burrowing, at times up into her feet through her soles. She moved to the sofa, butthey had already squeezed their way through the stuffing, then into her back, buttocks, thighs. It didn't hurt; instead they studiously quarried away, miners unearthing treasures, eating their fill, moving onwards.
Rob's hand stopped stroking her side. "That dream is nasty, Ness. We've got to do something about it."
She tried, but it was difficult to explain how they burrowed inside, through her skin into her essence; it wasn't gross, she insisted.
"Well… no, that's gross," replied Rob.
The next few days were devoted to determining the identity, source, and methods of destroying the infestation. Whenever Rob came over, he would use Ness’ laptop to Google the different pests that congregated in their area of the world. Shoving the laptop in her face with a giant blown up image of a multi-segmented beetle, he exclaimed, "They're drugstore beetles! Oh wait, I've discovered a new function on Google images. They're pantry moths. Whatever they are, they're a good source of protein!" She had eaten at least five good sources of protein.
Or it could've been more. The way they burrowed, tunneled, they moved inside of her body. She kept dreaming she could feel them inching along, traveling through her limbs, moving towards the ventricles of her heart, little tingles when they turned around, ran into one another and switched directions. Intersecting, growing, multiplying, transforming as they moved. They moved ever so slowly, but every night these dreams made her sweat, toss, and turn. They were figuring out where to go. But it was too much for Rob, who stopped spending the night. "You wiggle too much now, and you're taking all the sheets."
Rob started bugging her about cleaning up the kitchen, but she only grew silent and pensive. He had written down a list of what she had to do to deal with this problem. First, all the food would have to be thrown out, frozen, isolated, and/or inspected for contamination. Then, every surface would have to be wiped down with hot water and soap, followed by another disinfection with a dilutionof vinegar. Finally, she would have to clean and quarantine any food that was brought in from the outside world. That was where they really came from - outside.
“She kept dreaming she could feel them inching along, traveling through her limbs, moving towards the ventricles of her heart, little tingles when they turned around, ran into one another and switched directions.”
He stuck the list up on the fridge door and for weeks, whenever he came by, he’d remind her to get started on the great cleanse. He still came by after work to watch TV while she wandered to and from the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, pretending to tidy. Whenever his cutting gaze caught her, she felt exposed. When he came into the kitchen, he pointed out all the telltale signs of invasion: small, dry brown shells which lay scattered; a grain of rice that started wagging on its own; clinging particles signifying cobwebs; a flash of dry, papery wings sweeping past as he opened the cupboards. "I'm trying to help you. This is a really serious problem."
Ness began to feel an almost continuous sensation of revulsion. Almost anything could be a symptom. It looked like a grub; it appeared by a beetle; there, a moth, here, a speck of dust, a mote. This was supposed to be her domain. She felt guilty for failing to keep a clean kitchen. His list, written in black Sharpie, all caps, stuck in the middle of the fridge, was so long and demanding. When she peered into her kitchen, there was nothing, but then if she tried to see things the way that he did, the signs were everywhere: lurking, hiding.
She had stopped cooking because there was the risk of discovery with everything she opened up in the pantry. A bag of risotto could be wriggling larva. She could stare into the depths of the bag for minutes, concluding that there was nothing but inanimate granules. Yet they’d start curling up, shrieking and smoking, when she poured it out onto the heat of a stovetop. If she didn't make risotto that night, they could have continued living safe and unknown, coddled amongst the grains in the dark warmth of the cupboard. They could have been free for the duration of their lives, doing whatever that entailed; being a grub, turning into a beetle, maybe building a cocoon of one's own and finally bursting out as a moth.
In the moments at home alone after Rob had left for the night, she crawled into bed and found that she could start burrowing into the covers, maybe drill down into the memory foam and discover another world.
"Fine - if you don't want to eat or make anything in the house, then let's go out to eat. Go get dressed." But wasn't the source of the problem from outside? That's how they first came in. Going outdoors felt too exposed. Why go? Why be peeled away from her soft sweats and jersey into stiff heels and scratchy jackets, out into the cold, shrieking wind, waiting in line outside of a bistro surrounded by smokers, forcing conversation in order to drown out other conversations that weren't meant to be overheard? If they had dinner at a restaurant, there was no TV. Instead, they'd have to sit across from one another, gazing at the full blast of each other's faces. Ness couldn't remember the last time she and Rob had talked about anything meaningful - or at least, meaningful to her. If the waiter was slow, they might be finished talking about what happened earlier in the day, the weather, the people around them, the decor of the restaurant, all before ordering. Then what would be left?
What is loving really like? To be able to crawl within a person's innermost veins and tunnels, looking around and knowing that this is what they were made of? An almost undetectable presence, only there every once in a while, made known by a tingling in her chest whenever she needed reassurance. It was unimaginable for Rob to be so small, a part of her in that way, imperceptibly burrowing into the Ness-ness of herself. Instead, it was always a ripping off of sweet silence, to force himself into her innermost sanctum. He was always shoving things in front of her face, pushing his hands onto her body, giving her advice, gazing upon her, listening to his voices, his thoughts on top of her reverie. Maybe all Ness wanted to do was to burrow and brood. Why did she have to do things? Least of all, why did she have to throw everything away and start rubbing her counters with vinegar? She wondered what it would be like to have a giant chocolate egg as a home, so great she couldn't see past its borders. It would sustain and protect her. It was food and home. The gingerbread house in the fairy tales without a witch or a brother - but hers and hers alone. Ness would eat and eat until she was sleepy, then lie down surrounded by dark, soft, sweet walls, nibbled down to embrace her shape. Then maybe after a little rest, she'd start making a cocoon, one in which you’d start knitting a cloak around yourself, building and building, until finally it encapsulates you fully and you are surrounded by nobody else, nothing at all, free to dream about the metamorphosis.
It was a relief to hear the clang of the spare key and the slam of the door. Turning the deadbolt lock slid in the last stitch, and she could finally rest, secure in knowing there were no more possibilities of intrusion, interruption. She could curl up on her bed amongst the blankets - nay, even venture out to the living room and stretch herself out on the rug on the floor, and still be enclosed! Ness was waiting.