Rustle
The ants are crawling. All over my skin. Burrowing into the hollows between my ankles and my shoes. Into the spaces between my toes. Under my clothes. Out of my nostrils, into my ears. Around my sinking eyes. They chew on my lips, peeling dead skin off dead flesh. My mouth is a pool of ants, crawling, crawling … a seething, red mass, spilling out endlessly, swarming back in through any convenient orifice, making incisions and boring tunnels where there are none. I know what you’re doing, I think out to them. A million voices do not answer; they are busy biting and cutting, and carting tiny chunks of tongue into the hungry mouths of their babies to feed a growing army of busy, single-minded marauders.
They scuttle. A million ants; six legs each. S-s-s-s-s-scuttle. Pincers gaping, snapping shut. Flesh twisting, tearing. S-s-s-s-s-scuttling all over my skin.
Millions of babies to feed. Millions of babies in my mouth. Do I swallow, do I spit?
