Of Sand Ships & Silent Silicate Seas by Bruce Taylor

Author:Bruce Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, kafka
Publisher: ReAnimus Press

Termites

You wake up and it’s like there’s been an invasion of termites in your brain and all your dreams are drained to you don’t know where.

Your sweetie says, “G’morning, dear.” And you, being socially and relationship-responsible, say “G’morning” back. But what you really want to say is, “Where’d the termites take my brains?”

And you wait. It’ll get better as the day goes on, and so to work. And everyone says “Hi, there!” and “How are you?” and so forth and so on and you’re Socially Responsible and you joke and share stories while a part of you thinks, So, where’s my fucking brain?

It’s like there are holes in your memories and so someone says, “Where’s the five bucks you owe me?” and you dutifully pay but how do you know that isn’t the third time they’ve asked this week? This hour?

You wait and do everything by routine as if your body follows some preprogrammed pathway and you know the day just has to get better. But it doesn’t and you come home and your wife says, “Hello, dear!”

And you say, “Hello” back and she says, “I think we have a little problem.”

Just what you want to hear after a day of work you really can’t recall and now a problem you have to solve along with all the other problems that you might have but—you can’t recall.

“The toilet’s broken and it looks like there’s dry rot and I called a building inspector—”

Oh, the foreboding, and you know, you know, oh, it’s gonna be grim.

“—and—?” you say.

“—he says—”

You get it. “We’ve got termites.”

“Yes,” she says, “in the—”

“—bedroom,” you respond.

A pause. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” you say.

“It’s bad,” she says.

“Oh,” you say, “you don’t know how bad it is. Oh, how bad it really is.”

“That bad,” she says.

“Really bad,” you say, and you sigh. Your worst feelings are confirmed. How could it be so bad? Termites eating my mind, my world. So your wife goes to fix you dinner and you somehow now know why you feel so empty inside and why your brain feels like it’s just not there and out of the corner of your eye, a little beast carrying something grey comes creeping near, comes to whisper in your ear, “It’s really not all that bad; we took some brains, we took some fat. Just don’t ask us, ‘Where’s the cat?’”

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