dreadcrumbs

Apocalypse Ant

As I was semi-happily typing away at an email today, I felt something fall down my face. It felt less like something falling from the sky or thrown from afar than something that had been sitting on my head, unnoticed, until a particularly vigorous mouse click shook it from its perch. I didn't really think anything of it, as bits of me tend to flake off at irregular intervals anyway. However, after removing the object from my cheek and subjecting the offending mite to scrutiny, I discovered that it was not, in fact, a piece of obsolete skin, but was instead an ant. More specifically, an ant corpse.

Now it's disturbing enough that I might have ants crawling about my head so soon after a shower, especially in a workplace known for an absence of non-human vermin. But that it was dead...I don't know. It makes me wonder what killed it. It makes me think of those caged birds that miners used to take into the caves with them to tell whether the air was toxic. When the bird sputtered and died, the miners knew it was time to go out and get some fresh air.

So what I am to gather from the death of an ant upon my head? Either:
A) I, myself, am toxic to ants, and should market my dander as bug poison
or
B) Some indeterminate thing in my environment is slowly killing me, I can do nothing about it, and should just smile, think of England, and try to ignore any mounting piles of animal carcasses in my vicinity.

Microstory Monday

The Stress of Her Regard
I watch her put in eyedrops for the sixth time in ten minutes.
"I expected you to understand this," she says.
I shake my head, trying to avoid her gaze. "It just seems...a little extreme."
"Since when is opening your eyes extreme? Wake up!" she shouts, and her new expression scares me a little.
I shrug. Arguing with her when she's like this is impossible. I point to the dish by the bedside that holds the scraps of her severed eyelids. "At least put them on ice," I say. "in case you want them later."

Friday Fives, Bonus Edition

Top five historical American political parties that I wish would come back into favor so I could buy their t-shirts and sing their "fight" songs. For your further edification, I've procured small snippets of a turn of the century union organizer singing these anthems. He's nowhere near vaudeville quality, but at least you'll get the idea.

5. The Fusion Party ("Pot Stirrers")
4. The Free Soil Party ("Soilers We")
3. The Know-Nothings ("Hymn to Nothing")
2. The Anti-Masonics ("I'd Rather Live in a Cave")
1. The Whigs ("Whig Men")

Thumb Decay

I think the spacebar of my keyboard is regularly sprayed with a virus. Or painted with some kind of bacteria. Some kind of flesh-eating bacteria. You wouldn't know it to look at it, as it is just your standard US English keyboard. Black. But something horrible is happening to my thumbs. The skin at the base of either side of my thumbnails looks like zombie flesh. You know, in varying degrees of flaky, nasty decomposition. It hasn't gotten to the point where people will point at my hands and scream, but that day is coming.

I suppose I can't really be certain the culprit is my spacebar, but I accuse it as the only thing my thumbs exclusively touch. And none of my other fingers are displaying any degree of leprous decay. My current plan to test this theory is to start hitting the spacebar with my lips, and see if they start to fall off. I'll have to pin my thumbs to the palms of my hands with duct tape so I won't be tempted to use them, of course. And keep a lot of lip balm on hand.

Sure, I may look ridiculous to passers-by, rapidly kissing my keyboard and trying to put on Chapstick with my flippers, but I'm willing to sacrifice my self-respect in the name of science. What I have left of it, anyway.

A Crowd of Bejeweled Digits

I just got out of a meeting with 18 rings and three people. The ring-to-human-head ratio was considerably out of balance. 1 to 1 seems normal. I could accept 2 to 1, but 6? I was starting to think I was in a room full of pirates. Or old money heiresses. Or devotees of that sinister arch-fiend, The Mandarin.

In any case, bad news. I feared for these people. If they weren't pirates, why all the gold? Were they just crazy? If you don't have a scimitar stowed away somewhere, it seems like you're just begging for a masked bandit with garden shears to come a-clipping. 

And ultimately, alas, despite the reasonable demeanor of these people, I couldn't help but be subtly influenced by a prejudice against the ring-laden. Can such people really be capable of concentrating on the task at hand? I mean, can you really make coherent business decisions if you're constantly fixated on buried treasure? Or the scandalous gown Kitty Henderson wore at the last summer ball? Or wreaking terrible revenge upon the insolent Iron Man? No. At least I couldn't.

Microstory Monday

The Suicide Crochet
We found Aunt Louise in her apartment about a week after she died, draped in a giant multicolored pot holder. Carefully avoiding the subject of the unfortunate location of her stitching hooks, we killed time waiting for the police to arrive.
"So how long you think it took her to make that note?" I asked my sister, gesturing to my Aunt's homemade shroud.
"I don't know," she said. "A month. Maybe two. The lettering is pretty good."