The swarm

You are a 6’2” caucasian male in your early forties. Though you pretend not to notice, you feel the burden of your age every day. You don’t feel as young as you once did, definitely don’t have as much courage. You’ll never have as much courage as you did at university when you bought your class crush Samantha Birkenmeier a cold beer at that run down bar. No, twelve years into your marriage with Samantha, you feel as pliable as, well, plywood. She gave you years of trust and commitment that you locked away in that inaccessible crevice of your heart. When she gave birth to healthy twin boys, Lawson and Ford, you swore to devote the rest of your life to them. And so you have. 

But lately, the emptiness grows colder, even in these warm days of June. You've taken to looking forward to your morning cups of coffee, making them with an impassioned extravagance. You try different stuff: French pressed lattes, whole bean espressos, dark roasts with tones of orange, hazelnut. You watch the various coffee machines hum and whirr in your big house. It really is quite big, isn’t it? As you sip on the warm brew, your leather slippers pad lightly on the hardwood floor. The beige of the walls catches rays of morning light. The windowed sun is cast upon the boys’ toys and your hand-crafted, several-hundred-dollar pottery vase. You step toward the shining panes, ones you had installed in your three bedroom, three bath home at the end of a cul-de-sac. 

This is your home, and you made it yours, you enunciate in your head. 

You close your eyes and bask in the glow. Sip. Swallow. Inhale. Exhale. Open. 

But that’s when you see it dancing in your lawn. You squint, because that's what people are supposed to do when they are trying to look closely at something far away. When that doesn’t work, you press your porous forehead to the window and see the thin dotted outline for what it really is: minute bugs. Gnats of some sort, you suppose. They buzz and bumble in an ever-changing blob, suspended several feet above your manicured grass. Though the shape remains amorphous, the cloud is resolute. 

The bugs disgust you. It discredits all the empty-hearted work you have done to construct this domestic life, and before you can act on the pang of rage this brings you, the same pang of rage you feel when you find Samantha’s thong and workplace associate’s business card in the back seat of your SUV, your twin sons trot down the stairs. Though they are sleepy-headed, their quiet excitement in seeing you is enough. This is enough, and you momentarily forget about the bugs. 

But the memories creep back into your brain during the humid heat of the afternoon. When the boys ask to play outside, you join them with a tempered curiosity; you want to see if there’s something you can do about the “buggy bug bugs.” As you approach the swarm, the tiny buzz raises only slightly in volume. The bugs take on a higher definition as you inch trepidatiously closer. You conclude that they can’t be lice, mites, or fleas. Just the common minuscule fly-gnat kind of insect. They bump into and against each other amidst their foray, lit from above by the noon sun. The boys ask you what you’re looking at. 

Nothing, you say sharply. You take another grizzly step forward, now nose-to-nose with the bugs. You swat purposefully, but it has no effect on the cloud. You swat again with more conviction. You barely feel any impact on your palm as it cuts through. Your swatting turns into a flurry of punching and slapping as you make your stand. Samantha walks out on your limestone stoop and asks you just what on earth you think you’re doing. 

Nothing, you again reply sharply. Sensing that pang of rage, that tinge of emptiness, that affront on your hard work, you excuse yourself and return inside, where you change the thermostat from 71ºF to 70ºF and seclude yourself. You do this for the rest of the afternoon, thinking the only thoughts you know how to think after all this time. 

At dinner, Samantha makes salmon filets with green beans and rice. Ford eats better than Lawson, who plays with his fork and dull knife. You eat until your plate is empty. Your eyes drift over to the window with a smudge from your forehead, but you can’t see the bugs outside. The dark of the evening merely reflects the nuclear portrait you are complicit in painting. 

In bed, Samantha asks you to tell her what's wrong, because she can tell something is off. 

I noticed a small cloud of gnats flying over the lawn, You say in a voice that doesn’t sound entirely like your own. She sighs and asks if that is all. You say yes. She almost laughs and rolls over, clicking off her brass bedside lamp. You sit awake for hours, staring at your flat ceiling. When you drift to sleep, your dreams bear that very same flatness. 

You awaken with the knowledge of where the household fly sweater is and hurry downstairs. You opt for a seasonal medium roast with half and half and some raw sugar. You drink an entire mug before you look out the window to see what you already know is there. The bugs dance happily. You race to the family computer desk and reach behind, where you had dropped the fly swatter while dislodging a toy. Firmly grasping the fly swatter in your gaunt hand, you practically run out the front door and onto your lawn. 

Again, you take a stand against the swarm. You swat and swat and swat, waving the flimsy piece of plastic in the air. There is no detectable change in the party of insects. Furious beyond any reasonable level, you head to the garage where you keep a can of pesticide, a canister of motor oil, a jug of windshield wiper fluid, and a machete for cutting the tall grass behind the property line. Grabbing the pesticide with harmful intent, you step heavy-footed toward the swarm. You spray and spray and spray, emptying the can out on your lawn. 

Nothing. You stand in absolute befuddlement at the lack of effect you have had on the swarm. Then, after five minutes, maybe ten, you realize the absolute lack of effect you have had on anything, really. In high school, you only ever supported your JV basketball team from the bench. In college, you merely sided with the popular vote for any given election in your fraternity. In your current position, you find yourself working tirelessly to prove yourself, but to whom and for what remains completely unknown. So much of your own life feels like a total

mystery, as though a shade has been drawn over everything. A thin, opaque veil. A swarm of insects blocking out the sun. 

You stand for hours watching the bugs. In the early afternoon, Samantha asks if you are okay. You don’t reply. In the late afternoon, she holds Lawson and Ford and carries them to their expensive car seats in the SUV. She says they are going to stay at her parents' house because, by the looks of it, you shouldn’t be around the boys in this state. Both your sons coo from the back seat as she shuts the door with years of contempt. What's the matter with you? your dearly beloved wife asks. 

Nothing, you hoarsely reply. She drives off. 

You remember that the last time something like this happened, you bought three packs of cigarettes and a lighter and smoked two full packs behind the superstore parking lot. You remember how beautiful the sunset looked that evening, the red-orange hues of the sky mixing into a gradient against the county's various smoke stacks and apartment complexes. As you filled your lungs full of nicotine, tobacco, and formaldehyde, you felt freer than you ever had before, all because you had the courage to start a tiny flame. You remember that the final pack of cigarettes and the lighter are in your bedside drawer. 

Two cigarettes dangle excitedly from your smiling maw as you shuffle through the house, back to the garage. You return to the garage, where you grab the machete and the motor oil. As you carry the ingredients, you remember to straighten your back—you don’t want bad posture now, do you? 

You stand for a final time in front of the swarm. You unscrew the safety cap on the motor oil and douse the gnats, or douse them as best you can. Most of the black slick falls flatly onto your lawn. The dark goo shines the green grass. While you’re at it, you douse the machete too, which is dangling from your belt loop. 

You take out the lighter and spark the sticks like they used to in black-and-white movies. The warm breath on the inhale is almost enough to quell the pang of rage, but you remember the task. You reach toward your mouth with your pointer finger and your thumb and remove one of the cigarettes. This will be the swarm’s final offering. It is all you have left to give. You drop the cigarette into the pile of oil. 

A pillar of fire immediately forms in front of you. It reminds you of a tower, or of love, or of the heat of hate, or something else entirely. You remove the machete from your side, and that catches aflame too. You slash and slash and slash, flaming sword in hand. Behind the blaze, your meticulously crafted home has seemingly already caught on fire, but you can’t really tell. Your shoulder locks and your spine straightens as the sword burns brightly against the pillar of destruction. 

For a moment, relief. 

But then you hear the buzz. Not with your ears, though. The bugs are in your head, and you can hear the swarm in the back of your brain, black gnats crawling and flying inside of your skull. What have you done? The swarm asks. 

Nothing, you reply.