Ants and Worms

Welcome to The Spot Writers. Prompt for this month: This post is inspired by gardening. Write a story that involves worms.

 

Along with several short story collections and books of poetry, Cathy has published two novels: WOLVES DON’T KNOCK, a psychological drama, and MISTER WOLFE, the darkly dark sequel/stand-alone novel. She has also written two volumes of grief poetry in memory of her son Matthew that she hopes might help other grieving parents: MY HEART IS BROKEN and BROKEN HEARTS CAN’T ALWAYS BE FIXED.

 

Cathy continues with her Melvin saga. Alas, she’s going to write a few more episodes before she shuts the curtain.

 

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Ants and Worms

by Cathy MacKenzie

 

“Melvin! Come here.”

I groaned. What now? She’d been a royal pain in the b*tt the entire morning. Just when I’d grabbed a few minutes to sit in my recliner with my feet up, guzzling a couple beers...

“I’m here, Marie,” I screeched without budging. “Where are you?” My insides were bursting with laughter. Always gotta pretend to be concerned even when you’re not.

“Here. On the front porch. Hurry.”

Despite my lack of motivation, I jumped off the recliner and raced to the front door. Her voice had been weirder than normal, and I was a tad concerned. Still, it couldn’t have anything to do with William, who was at his friend’s for the night, and the girls were dead. Basically, everyone in my family was dead but us three.

And good things come in threes, right? I had that, at least.

“Mel, this is soooooo gross. Look at this.”

“What?”

“This. Tons of ants. All crawling to the front door. Don’t step on them!”

I picked up my right foot. Couldn’t pick up both at the same time. Didn’t see anything. “Where?”

“There.”

Ya, okay...

“Can’t you see them? You’re blind as well as deaf. Next time you go back to Seleki, make sure you get your eyes and your hearing checked.”

“Seleki isn’t an eye specialist. Nor is he an ear, nose, throat guy. He’s a GP.” Seleki was also a foreigner; that’s all I knew about him personally. But whatever—didn’t/doesn’t matter to me his nationality or other proclivities. He was an excellent doc, and I was lucky to have him in this current state of lack of doctors.

“Well, no matter,” Marie said. “He does referrals. He refers you all the time to every doc under the sun. You gotta be the healthiest person in Nova Scotia, if not Canada.”

“You’re right about that.” And I wasn’t lying. Despite our health care dilemma with the doctor shortage (not to mention the shortages of other healthcare professionals), I could call him at ten in the morning and have an appointment at eleven. Marie was right; I had to be the fittest guy in all of Nova Scotia, if not Canada. I think I’ve seen every specialist imaginable over the last ten years. Seleki must rake in tons of commissions if he takes care of his other patients as he does me.

But what was she hammering on about? “Worms?”

“It’s ants, Mel. Ants. Look at them. If we keep the screen door open, I’m sure a herd of them will rush in.”

“It’s ‘army,’ Marie. The correct word for a herd of ants is army. You can also use the word ‘colony’ if you so desire.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Frogs are called the same. Either army or colony. Weird, eh?”

“You’re so full of knowledge, it’s mind-boggling.” She paused and smiled. “I bet you don’t know what a herd of worms is called. ’Cause we have worms, too, now that you mention it!”

“Hmmm, herd?”

When she smirked, I knew she had the barrel of apples over me, and I almost ran to the woods so they wouldn’t hit me.

“It’s ‘clew,’ Melvin. A clew of worms.”

“Clew? What kinda word is that?”

“I know. Never heard the term myself. And I didn’t tell you what happened to me yesterday, did I?”

“Hmmm... Don’t believe you did.”

There was a clew of worms, Melvin. A clew. Worse than an army or a colony of ants or frogs. They were horrid. I was trying to weed, and they kept popping up and—”

“It’s from the rain. You keep weeding in the rain.”

“I come out when there’s a lull. If I don’t keep on them, the gardens will be overgrown with weeds. All we’ve had is rain for the past week.”

“We need it, Marie. All these wildfires gotta be doused. I heard on the radio that Nova Scotia’s rainfall over the last five years is the lowest it’s ever been in the history of our province.”

“I’m not complaining about the rain. I’m just saying I have to weed in the rain sometimes. But now—today—there’s ants. I don’t care if they stay in their own territory, but they’re slowly—no, quickly—entering ours.”

“It’s global warming. Everything is skewed and scattered. World’s going to shit. And fast.”

“Mel, all I care about now is the ants. And the worms. Stuff that interferes with my daily life. Not the world’s—well, of course, I care about the world as a whole, but right now, it’s just the ants, Mel. The ants. You hear me?”

“Marie, I’ll get the ant spray, okay. That’ll keep them at bay.”  I turned to go to the garage but stopped and faced Marie. “Hey, did you hear that?”

“What?”

“I’ll get the ant spray, okay. That’ll keep them at bay. Do you get it, Marie? It rhymes: spray, okay, bay. I’m a poet, Marie. I’m a poet!”

“Melvin, shut up and get the ant spray before I do something I’ll regret.”

 

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/