—I HEAR WHAT YOUR’E SAYING

 

 

A COLONY OF TERMITES


The termites are casting spells. Their pinchers click like castanets, the air smelling of warm bread and saw dust. Each day brings new piles of wood shavings, mounds of them sit like blonde hairballs in the halls of our hollow house.

None of us say anything.

In our room my older brother lays in the lower bunk whistling and whittling wood.

“Don’t you think we’ve already had enough of that?” I ask.

“Huh?”

I don’t answer.

I hear the termites through the walls. The walls are wearing thin. The walls are no longer white, berry-colored blemishes seeping through from the other side, sticky and wet. I hear the furniture rattle. A mirror falls.

The termites take up a chorus of anguish, a wounded whale wailing sound.

“I never knew,” I say.

“Huh?” my brother asks.

I never knew termites had voice boxes, I think but don’t say.

My brother is dim but he shouldn’t have to deal with this, nor my sister in the room next door. My sis is growing thinner by the day, her hair falling out, her breath sour milk.

I realize I am not yet a man but I have choices: do nothing or do something. The latter requires boldness and bravery.  I can collect my siblings and get out of here or I can intervene. I’ve tried reasoning before, but it’s their own violence that they thrive on.

Were they once ants? Did they mutate? I’ve seen photographs from other times. Holding hands. Kissing. One wearing white.

Now they claw through the wooden joists. Dried plaster showers down like cocaine and white nuggets of gold. Jagged shingles of a ceiling come apart. Beams fall. One stakes claim to my chest, drives straight through my heart just to make sure I know this is over, my parent’s marriage, us as a family.