Reasons why it was the happiest I’d ever been:
- Every morning making love under the cool white sheets as the warm yellow sun streamed in through the open window.
- Afterwards, he would cook me eggs, scrambled and cooked until they were almost burnt, cooking shirtless and humming my favorite tune.
- Cut wildflowers on the table.
- A small apple scented candle.
- Oranges leisurely rotting on the counter.
Photograph: dead bodies, lying on their backs with their six legs stuck up into the air.
Video: a live one crawling over the moldy oranges. I swatted it, felt remorse, disposed of the body.
A series of photographs: under the coffee maker, behind the bread box, invading the pantry, cooked into our food.
Things we did to get rid of them:
- Spent late nights chasing them down and joking about committing mass murder.
- The exterminator came, spraying the house down with poison.
- More dead bodies. The exterminator warned us that the living would feast on the dead so we would be wise to dispose of the bodies quicker rather than later.
- Scoured every inch of every room, vacuuming, sweeping, sanitizing.
- Became undertakers full time.
Diary entry: We no longer make love every morning. He does not speak or even hum as we dispose of the bodies. I’ve never been one to fill a silence just for the sake of it so it hangs there between us, stretching itself out like a cat in sunlight.
Facts:
- They came back.
- So did the exterminator.
- Back and forth until we ran out of money and argued about what to do about it.
- Argued about fumigating, selling the house, where to move instead, whether or not we were going to make it.
- And through it all, the scuttling and rustling of little legs crawled all around us.
The solution: He doused the house with gasoline and I, never one to fill a silence, did not stop him. We lit it from outside and watched as thousands of lives burnt away in the flames. He gingerly took my hand in his and I melted against him, leaning my head on his shoulder.
Ly Faulk 
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