Short Story 22: Insect
A minimalist story about a man and a woman living in an apartment. One of them becomes unsettled when they discover they aren't the only ones living there. They share the place with some insects
A loud bang resonated through the apartment. The woman jumped, her hands freezing over the keyboard. The man’s hand remained on the granite table, a red mark blooming where he had struck.
“Sorry, I was trying to get a mosquito.”
He lifted his hand slowly, inspecting the surface. Nothing. The mosquito had slipped away, leaving the air still again.
“Did you get it?” she asked, eyes flicking to the spot on the table.
She tugged at the hem of her dress, her fingers twisting the stiff fabric as she looked back at her screen. They sat opposite each other, both hunched over their laptops in the kitchen.
“No, I missed it. God damn it.”
They continued working on their machines. Her fingers moved steadily across the keys, the rhythmic clatter of typing filling the room as she replied to one email after another. He scrolled through a forum, reading different strategies for the video game he played, his focus drifting from one post to the next. They had been in the apartment for a few days now and were set to stay for at least a month. The woman had business with a government agency in this unfamiliar city. She got by with the language, but it was foreign to the man, who had come along thinking it might be fun.
The man got up and walked into the next room. The apartment consisted of three rooms: the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom. A small balcony jutted off the bedroom, just big enough to hang a few layers of clothes to dry. Space was tight in every room. Every time the man used the bathroom, his leg would awkwardly brush against the toilet bowl or bump into the sink. The bedroom was dominated by their three luggage bags, leaving little room to move around. He paused for a moment, noticing how close everything seemed, how each step required careful navigation.
The kitchen doubled as the living room, with a couch pushed against the wall and a fake plant squeezed into the corner. A microwave perched on a shelf over the sink, positioned just high enough to make washing dishes a challenge. Every time the man leaned forward, his head risked bumping into it. The door to the outside world was also in the kitchen. That’s where all the mosquitoes were coming from. That’s what the man suspected anyway. He had made sure to shut all the windows. Where else could they be coming from?
Every time he caught a mosquito, two more seemed to spawn the moment he washed his hands. The mosquitoes were quick when they were hungry, but moved sluggishly after they became full of blood. Whenever he clapped his hands together to catch one, he’d check his palms, uncertain if he’d got it. On the rare occasions when he was sure, he’d study the crushed body in his hand, its insides a congealed black jelly. He’d wonder who the mosquito had bitten — him or the woman. When he was younger, his father always told him he had sweet blood which was why the insects were attracted to him. “Probably me," he thought.
Every day he woke up with fresh mosquito bites, mostly on his legs and arms. Sometimes, when he thought about it, he’d dab rubbing alcohol on the new welts, a remedy his mother had given him. But more often, he’d just scratch them until they bled and scabbed over.
When the woman went to work, the man stayed in the apartment. His days blurred together, each one following a similar pattern. He’d wake up late, long after she’d left, and reach for his phone, scrolling through it before finally getting out of bed. He kept himself busy with video games, chores, and researching mosquitoes. Most of them fed at dawn or dusk. There were daily quests in his game, tasks that had to be completed to earn rewards — if he missed a day, he’d fall behind. They laid their eggs in stagnant water. He’d wash clothes by hand and hang them on the balcony, where the sun would bake them dry in an hour. Mosquitoes kill hundreds of thousands of people a year. He told himself the daytime heat was the reason he stayed inside all day, glued to his laptop and phone or taking long showers until the water turned cold. In the evenings, when the woman returned, they’d occasionally go out for a walk, but the mosquitoes would always find him, making the night feel just as stifling as the day.
There wasn’t a mosquito problem in this place. He wasn’t too sure about the ants though. The kitchen was full of them. A steady stream of tiny bodies moved along the grout lines. The app on his phone called them sugar ants. There were like spilled black pepper on the cream-coloured tiles, some heading towards the fridge, others disappearing under the table. He spent a moment watching them, imagining that each one had an assigned task, as if they all knew exactly what they were supposed to do.
The man decided to call his parents, one after the other. He hadn’t spoken to them in a while, preferring to text instead. His father joked about how “retirement” was treating him, and the man chuckled, mentioning an ant problem in the apartment as the reason for his call. His mother sent her regards to the woman and, as always, reminded him to wear sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat whenever he went out.
When the woman returned, it was around 6pm.
“How was your day?” the man asked.
“It was good, yeah, it was great! I was so productive. I got a lot done. I finally finished the report and sent it off to the international agencies. Getting everyone to agree on the numbers took forever, but it’s done.”
The man nodded at the right moments, his responses falling into the usual rhythm. Familiar words were exchanged out of habit. She kept talking, her words filling the room. He responded politely, asking follow-up questions. Mosquitoes can detect human breath from up to 75 feet away. He kept responding, kept listening.
“What about you?” she asked. “What did you get up to today?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Did some chores, read a book, nothing special.”
The woman laid down on the couch and sighed.
“I’m wrecked. Not sure how much longer I can keep this pace.”
“You’re a workaholic, you know that? Maybe…. We could take a break soon?”
She smiled. “Maybe tomorrow.”
The woman continued to work after she came home, her focus absorbed by the deadlines looming ahead. Every minute counted. The man hovered nearby, watching her work, feeling the weight of the evening settle in. He wanted to take a walk, but he didn’t want to go alone. He’d ask tomorrow, he told himself. He’d ask tomorrow.
As she went to the fridge, she noticed they were running low on water. She reached for the last bottle. Without a word, the man took the empty bottle from her hand, put on his flip-flops and headed out.
The man walked slowly to the grocery store, the sun already sinking low in the sky. Inside, the aisles were narrow, packed with unfamiliar products and labels he couldn’t read. He found the water section and grabbed four large bottles.
At the checkout, the cashier spoke to him in rapid sentences. He froze, his face tightening as he handed over the cash. She repeated herself, her tone more insistent. He nodded, forcing a smile, and repeated the polite phrases he’d learned for moments like this when people spoke too fast. His grip tightened on the water bottles as they sat on the counter. He shrugged again, mumbling something in return, the words foreign even to him.
After what felt like an eternity, he gathered his change and the water, muttering a “thank you” that didn’t feel quite right. He left the store quickly, the hot air outside hitting his face. The tightness in his chest lingered as he walked back to the apartment.
At night, the man stared at the ceiling. He guessed he’d been staring for at least three hours before sleep finally took hold of him. He woke up at dawn, an unusual hour for him. He went into the kitchen and started sweeping up the ants. The quiet of the morning settled around him.