
—
You worked at the church, waited for the animals of your family to die. Hundreds of acres of skin and stitches and still no surprises.
They disgust us because they show us what we are, always, eventually. Small, scattered. Confused. They make a mockery of our pretense of “progress”.
Legs moved like a hydraulic system, unnatural, mathematical, controlled by blood pressure, judgements of lesser parts, meaningless never ending methodical action.
—
Insects have their own scenery of denial.
I remember a lot of movement without momentum. Angular. Divided. I remember they came out like an ink storm on the sheets and the bedspread.
We took out the mattress and then we took out the whole room.
—
Jillison. Listen to me.
Don’t ever mistake activity for achievement. They already had a name for that, they called it the insect century.
Do you still not understand what the problem is? I don’t understand the entomology, that’s what you said.
Jillison. Listen to me. This is the truth. Your past comes with you. If you have any insects, you have all of them.