Annie and the Wasp

By Jane Lovell

You should have seen your face, Annie. You should have seen your face when you stepped through the door and realized you were the only one here. What were you expecting? I know what it looked like from the outside. This looked like a place where people live, not like a falling-apart husk of a thing surrounded by soybean fields, with a caved-in roof and rotting floorboards. Like an abandoned wasp’s nest, all brittle and empty. Where’d all the wasps go, Annie?

Did you know some wasps lay their eggs inside figs? It’s true. A wasp lands on the fruit and crawls inside, and if it’s the right kind of fig, she can lay her eggs and crawl back out, but if it’s the wrong kind of fig, Annie, she gets stuck. She crawls deeper into the flesh of the fruit, keeps crawling until pieces of her break off, until she can’t move anymore, and then she dies. She dies in there, Annie. The fig eats her alive and digests her body, but she went in willingly.

I am sorry about the car. I know you actually meant to return it this time. The first time you intend to return something you borrow, and it breaks down and strands you here in the middle of nowhere with me. Don’t worry about it too much, though. He might not get it back from you, Annie, but he’ll get it back. You shouldn’t have been on the road. You shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to make up your mind about coming home for Christmas. They miss you, Annie. They’ve been missing you. You’re their unfavorite daughter, and they still miss you. Doesn’t that count for something?

You know what this house meant, Annie. You always wanted to live in a house like this. Nothing bad could happen in a house like this.

They’re waiting up for you at home, you know. You can feel your phone vibrating, can’t you? They’re missing you, Annie. Would it be helpful to imagine they’re not? Let’s imagine. Let’s imagine this house is all there is, all that’s left. It’s just you and me, Annie. The last beating hearts left in the cataclysm. Life and what strives after it.

You always say they don’t get you. They didn’t get you, Annie? They asked you about your life, and they told you the truth about what they thought. And they were right, weren’t they? They did get you, Annie, and you couldn’t handle it.

I told you about figs, but you know about orchids, don’t you, Annie? Can you speak? Have you lost your tongue again? Alright, I’ll tell you about orchids, Annie. They need the wasps too. They make themselves all black and fuzzy, like wasps, and the wasps try to mate with them. The orchids get pollinated by all the wasps flying around, and the wasps get nothing. Imagine you’re a wasp, and you meet another wasp, but she isn’t a wasp at all. She’s not even alive in a way you recognize. She’s not a real thing, just a fibrous amalgamation of traits that look right at a distance but fall apart with a touch. Now, don’t pout, Annie, just because you don’t like to hear it. Don’t twist your mouth like that. You understand, don’t you, Annie? Deep down, you understand it. It’s a cruel old world, Annie. You know that.

I’ll tell you another thing about the wasp and the fig, Annie. She crawls inside and she dies in there, Annie, but it’s not a harsh death. She’s not set on fire or stabbed or strangled or stoned. The suffocating flesh closes in, but it’s warm in there, and the walls are soft. It’s a hug, Annie. It’s an embrace. It’s the kind of embrace you lose yourself in, the kind where you lose the boundaries of your body and become a part of the embrace. That’s love, Annie. That’s the secret. That’s the last thing the wasp knows before she dies: love. The love that embraces, the love that devours, the love of something bigger than she is.

I know it’s cold, Annie, but soon you won’t feel the cold anymore. Soon it will all be over, Annie. I was waiting in this house for you for a long time, Annie, and it was cold. I have to tell you something, Annie. I doggone love you. I love you, Annie. Everything I do, I do for you. Everything I do, I do to keep you breathing. But now it’s over. I did what I could. Do you love me, Annie?

They look like little stars, don’t they, Annie? Little stars spiraling. They’re just snowflakes. But maybe we can pretend. The stars are falling down to meet you, Annie.

THE END

Author Bio: Jane Lovell is a writer from St. Louis, Missouri. Her work has appeared in Abyss & Apex and Midwest Weird.