Ants

TW: blood, dissociation, troubled perceptions of reality

Five 

“... so this monk gets told to swim down to the seabed and unhook the anchor from whatever it’s caught on. But when he does, he realises it’s caught on a bell tower, and then looks down and sees all of these other monks looking up at him. And the weird thing is, they’re not swimming or anything. They’re just going about their lives. And they’re looking up at him as if he’s the strange one, as if he’s just flown down out of the sky. Anyway, he lives with them for a year, and then swims back up to his ship when it returns, on the way back home. And we never know which version of reality is correct – is there a monastery in the sea or a ship in the sky?.” 

Sadie sits back victoriously as her anecdote comes to an end. It’s New Year’s Eve and everyone is restless. I look around at my closest and oldest friends – their faces gently held by the glow of the tea lights that Sadie scattered across the table before dinner – and feel a flare of nausea in my stomach.  

“Surely the first version is the right one Sade,” I chime in, hoping to bring the conversation around existential ambiguities to a swift close, already half-thinking of where I could find the paper for super charades, “you begin with the ship above the water. That’s what’s real. Everything else is just the mad thoughts of a drowning man.” 

As I’m saying this I see a tiny movement out of the corner of my eye, a writhing. I look closer and see this queasy glittering on the tablecloth; a slow, obsidian stream winding around the empty plates and glasses, disappearing off the table edge. I think of an unfurled strand of night sky, of raindrops chasing each other across a darkened window, I lean in. It’s ants. There are a colony of ants on Sadie’s tablecloth.  

“Vic, are you even listening to me?”  

Four  

The bits of paper on the living room floor fly up when Marnie opens the door; a small snowstorm of shards of A4 and scribbled biro whirls as the news hums on the TV. 

... Medical staff are declaring a state of emergency, as hospitals simply don't have enough beds or resources to cope... 

“Why are you watching the news? Bit grim no?” 

Marnie’s voice breaks me out of my reverie but I can see Simon still slumped in the armchair in the corner, transfixed. I hear Sadie rustling about directly behind me, but she doesn’t say anything.  

... are on standby as the clocks turn midnight tonight, due to fears there could be devastating...  

“Are you worried about whether it’s actually going to happen? The bug?” Simon’s mouth moves as he asks the question, but his eyes are fixed on the screen. I don’t think he blinks.  

“Nah come on,” I reply “it’s just fearmongering, I bet-” 

“I heard them saying somewhere that it could affect planes. That planes might just start falling out of the sky.” 

I watch Simon as he finally takes his eyes off of the screen and looks at each of the four walls of Sadie’s living room in turn, with such intensity it’s like he’s pressing his eyes into the brick. 

... experts have said that these systems seem to be secure, however...  

I imagine the wing of a plane thrusting itself through Sadie’s bookshelf, sending her self-help guides and unopened Ottolenghi recipe books soaring. I think about the four walls of my bedroom in my rented flat. How I always wanted to paint them burnt orange, but now I would never be able to because I was getting evicted in February.  

“What do you reckon Sade? Here’s hoping you’re not on the flight path.” 

Sadie doesn’t respond, so I carry on watching the news. A few minutes later I pass her on my way out to the kitchen, and she’s curled up in the armchair frantically scratching one arm. Even from across the room I can see that she’s scratched it so hard that it’s starting to bleed.  

Three  

In the kitchen, I stand for a moment in the comfortable wreckage of dinner – the baking trays jutting out from the half-filled sink; the plates piled expectantly next to the dishwasher; the empty glasses huddled on the table, bleary from being held. I feel achingly lonely.  

I’m struck by the sense that I’ve completely forgotten why I came here, have that sensation of my body operating outside of my mind, like I’m following myself around. To make up for it I begin stacking the dishwasher, enjoying the rhythmic clatter of each piece of cutlery as it falls into place.  

I’ve cleared all of the plates and have started on the cups by the time I see ants again. This time there’s more of them, packed even more tightly together as they move – like a crack in the sideboard next to the toaster, shivering and writhing as it widens.  

The kitchen door behind me snaps open and I whip my head around. It’s Simon, his eyes bright and vacant, like the glaring light of the TV is still held within them. Maybe he’s even more drunk than I thought. 

“You alright mate?” I ask warmly, tea towel in hand, back to the toaster, everything is fine.  

“No.” He says with such gentleness. Where he’s standing in the kitchen, with his back to the kitchen door, the strip lights underneath the cupboards are directly behind him. His tangle of ash blonde air is suffused with the clinical white light, so that the outer strands frame his head like a sad, messy halo. He still has that vacant glow in his eye, like he’s not really seeing me or anything in the kitchen at all. I feel a powerful impulse to hold and protect him, to tuck him away somewhere safe until everything feels kinder and more certain. I also feel an equally powerful impulse to slap him.  

I do neither. Instead – and I’m not sure whether it's because he’s clearly feeling something too, or because of the vaguely celestial way the light is hitting his hair – I just ask him. “Have you seen them too? I keep seeing ants everywhere. I saw them at the dinner table earlier and now they’re-” 

I stop because I’m suddenly aware that Simon is looking directly at me, seeing me now, with this unbearable intensity. My foot hits the open dishwasher as I try and take a step back from him. He runs his hands through his hair, groans, then exhales deeply.  

“I haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about Vic.” 

Then he leaves the room and slams the door behind him.  

Two  

Sadie’s bathroom door feels reassuringly solid as I knock on it, slightly less gently now than the times before. Up this close, with my forehead pressed against it, I can really see the veins of the fake wood. When I look for too long they start to blur and writhe. I pull my forehead away.  

Sadie’s twitching behind me, asking a constant stream of whispered questions, “Can you hear anything? I reckon he must just be absolutely fucked – he was drinking a lot wasn’t he? And he seemed quite drunk earlier? Or maybe he’s taken something – did you see him take anything?” 

Marnie’s at the bottom of the stairs looking anxiously up, wanting to be helpful but equally unwilling to have any involvement in the drama that started unfolding as soon as Simon left the kitchen. He’s been in the bathroom for almost 45 minutes now.  

“Simon,” I breathe into the door, ignoring Sadie, “we just wanted to check if you’re OK? We’re worrying about you.” 

Outside, the first fireworks are going off prematurely, light and colour flowering violently into life before being consumed by the night sky. Here on Sadie’s windowless landing we can only hear each explosion as it rips through the silence. It’s 4 minutes to midnight.  

Then, beneath the sound of fireworks, quiet at first but then louder, a soft whimpering. On the other side of the door, Simon is crying. From the flat, echoing quality of the sound, it’s clear that his face is pressed against the tiles on the bathroom floor.  

“Ah Si, I’m so sorry,” My hand pressed flat against the door like half a prayer as the anticipation of relief builds in my chest. This must be it now, the moment of revelation, of reconciliation, “whatever it is, we can talk through. And if you’re really drunk and just feeling a bit sad, that’s fine too.” 

That’s when he starts screaming.  

One 

It’s exactly midnight when we manage to kick the door down and get into the bathroom. 

The lights are off, so the room is lit up only by the fireworks which are now firing relentlessly on the other side of the frosted-glass window, like light from gunfire but in shades of red, green and blue. It gives everything in the room a broken, stuttering quality, like I’m watching myself reach out to Simon’s body – twisted, agonised on the bathroom floor – in garish stops and starts.  

I hold on to Simon’s arms - desperate to make him stop - and recoil instantly, my hands coming away hot and sticky. In the broken light I see that his arms are red raw and bleeding where he’s scratched them so much, is scratching them still. I look over to Sadie where she’s sat cradling Simon’s head in her lap, trying to stop him from hitting it against the floor. But where I expect to see my horror and confusion mirrored, there’s a deep sadness on her face. As she looks down at Simon, her cheeks sparkle green and blue with tears.  

“You’ve seen them too?” 

Simon says nothing in response, but there’s a softening in his body, and the screaming subsides. I lie down on the floor next to him, feel the tremors roll through his body and into mine. I see Marnie’s silhouette in the doorway and think about how monstrous the three of us must look, huddled together on the floor in the restless darkness, limbs entangled, smeared with tears and blood.  

“I’ve seen them Si,” Sadie says, her voice muffled by Simon’s hair, “they’ve been crawling out of my skin.” 

Downstairs, the TV plays Auld Lang Syne to an empty room.  

1st January 2000, 3am  

I watch the last of the fireworks from the kitchen window. The silence feels much softer now, almost as if – if I held my breath and listened closely – I could hear the regular breathing of Simon and Sadie as they sleep upstairs.  

Eventually, we managed to peel ourselves off of the bathroom floor and Simon, dazed with exhaustion, completely silent now, allowed himself to be guided to bed. I wonder whether – tomorrow morning – we can all pretend that the aftermath is just a big hangover.  

I haven’t seen the ants again since midnight. I don’t think Sadie has either. We didn’t speak about it, but when we sat up together for a while before going to bed she didn’t scratch her arm once, just kept smoothing her hand over the inflamed skin as if she wanted to cover it up.  

I exhale deeply, waiting – like I had earlier, hand pressed against the bathroom door – for the feeling of relief to come. 

The sky stills and I look up again, hoping to feel a sense of a world created anew, washed clean by fire, a promising emptiness. Instead the sky looks opaque, like it’s absorbed all those colours and grown heavier, thicker, liquid. I look up and feel like I’m drowning.