SWARM — M.W. BROOKE
/Three days after my uncle died, flying ants poured from the mouth of our chimney-like rainwater from a gutter. They arrived with conviction that rivaled a plague of Egypt and burrowed into the golden shag carpet they might’ve mistaken for grass. Hundreds of iridescent wings shivered in the swarm. My brother and I took refuge on the couch. We pretended the floor was lava, teetering on the edges of chairs and end tables, giggling and screaming and itchy with the creeps. Dad knelt at the fireplace and coaxed a flame with old newspapers and splinters of too-green fatwood reserved for winter. Sour, pitchy smoke lifted from the kindling, thick like wool—a hopeful deterrent for any stragglers. He heaped on logs, waited for the fire to bite and start chewing, then tiptoed across the living room to open the windows and front door. Summer air stuffed with rain blew in. Dad scooped me and my brother up, an arm looped around each of our bellies, and carried us down the hallway. In our parents’ room, Mom was buried under sheets and a heavy duvet. I hadn't seen her since I found her crumpled and wailing on the kitchen floor with the landline receiver clutched to her chest. I didn't understand then, the shattering devastation of loss—what it meant to have a brother ripped away by the force of his own hand—but when Dad set us on the bed, instinct commanded me. I crawled to her, and my brother followed. We clung to her shape. In the morning, she rose from the bed with cobweb eyes, a blanket and grief hanging off her shoulders. I slipped my hand in hers and we shuffled into the living room. The fire was snuffed, the front door and windows still agape. The ants were gone, but their wings littered the carpet like shreds of tissue paper, abandoned as if their work was done.
M.W. Brooke is a queer writer originally from the American Southwest, now living in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in Atticus Review. She is currently on submission with her first novel and hard at work on her second.
