MicroHorror

She liked to yank weeds in the garden when she was really angry. And today she was mad. Gone. Fishing. Huh? Dinner. Last. Night. Sucked. Huh? I’ll. Show. HIM! Each staccato thought was punctuated with a yank of a weed–that satisfying moment when she won the tug of war and the roots were pried from their secure world of dirt. What was she, she wondered, some kind of an ant? Something he could step on? That’s how he treated her, stomping on her pride, squashing her self-esteem. And she was sick of it.

She had planned a romantic dinner for tonight in honor of their anniversary, one last-ditch effort to repair this broken marriage, but of course he picked a fight and went fishing with friends. Every weekend was the same–a big scene just so he could get out of the house. So what if she hadn’t hung his shirts in the closet all facing to the right? Just one more thing to scream at her about.

Yank. Yank. Yank. The pile of limp green stalks grew higher next to her. Usually weeding calmed her down. It gave her a feeling of control. If she could clear her garden of these parasites, which sucked water and nutrients from her beloved roses, then perhaps she could clear the anger that gnawed on her soul.

A little ant crawled its way up a weed and distracted her. She watched it as it foraged for food. She thought about how organized ants were, how devoted to their queen, how they worked together as a family, how none of them would care which way the shirts hung, and how much it pissed her off that they were taking over her yard–ant mounds everywhere. She reached out slowly and crushed the ant between her bare right thumb and forefinger. “There, that’ll show you!” She liked the little popping, squishy sound. It made her feel powerful, godlike.

As if on security patrol, a hundred ants swarmed her ankles, biting her, leaving painful pustules. She stomped on them, screaming, “I’ll kill you, you bastards!” Her anger seethed. Weed pulling had started out as a meditative exercise to calm her. Now, her blood boiled. She grabbed the pitch fork and stabbed at the ants.

Suddenly, her garden bolted, grew fourteen feet high in a second. The pitchfork clanked as it fell and hit the garden bench. She ran madly back and forth, thoughts of her husband obscured by an obsession to find that tasty morsel she sensed was nearby, a gift for her queen. But first, was that a bare ankle? What was it doing in her garden? Well, now she was really pissed. It was asking to be bitten.

She climbed a nearby weed stalk so she could get a better view of her surroundings. She scurried out onto a leaf. Her sky darkened as the shadow of a giant thumb and forefinger hovered over her.