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           The bugs live in my microwave. Every night, when I walk into the kitchen and flip on the light, they scatter around the counter, dozens of them, then sprint underneath and behind the black and grey box.

           I can’t remember if I hate bugs or not. They seem like creatures I would hate. I know I hate snakes. I certainly hate snakes. But bugs? These ones, at least, don’t really bother me. I try to remember a specific time when I hated bugs, when I felt grossed out or afraid of them. Well, there was the tick that gave my old dog Lady Lyme’s Disease, which ultimately killed her. Poor Lady. But that was more anger at the situation, and maybe at God, and less of a hatred of bugs kinda thing. Last week, I was watching a Sunday morning news show and saw that one of the members of The Talking Heads had written a “tell-all” book. He was reciting stories of the late 1970s about what this band member said and how the other made him feel. How did he remember so much? How do so many people remember so much?

There hasn’t been a decision not to kill the bugs. I just started not killing them. I have killed a few, for sure. I’ve taken a paper towel, like six or seven pieces of paper towel, and crunched them up into a big ball and pinched a few bugs underneath it. I’ve stepped on a few too. My dogs, (especially Ruby) whenever they see these little bugs scurrying on the kitchen floor, love to toy with them. They paw at them and lick them up and spit them out and watch them die. My two dogs: two mutts with golden hearts and placid eyes, in my view, are the most precious, loving creatures on this earth. Two animals I feel bad leaving alone to go out and run errands because of the sad looks on their little faces that tie these knots in my stomach. They torture and mutilate these bugs. So, yeah, a few times I’ve pulled the dogs away and stepped on the bugs quickly to put them out of their misery.

Then, a few times, late at night, or when I am running late for a work call, I see the bugs on the counter, rushing under, and out from under, the microwave, and think, eh, it’s okay. I won’t kill this one. I turn the light back off in the kitchen and head into the living room.

After only a few occasions of mercy, I correct this and make a decision to kill the bugs. While before the mercy it was a reflex, a societal norm; see a bug, squash a bug. Now I would flip the light on and see a bug and have to think, I am going to kill this bug?

And I do. I kill the bugs. Same deal: paper towel bunch, the crunch between my fingers. And it doesn’t feel good. I think about it after I do it. I think about it some more. I start to reflect on a bug’s life. As a vegan, and a dog owner, where is the line I’m drawing? What makes these little, centimeter sized bugs, with their little wings, any different from a bird, a pig, My two dogs, Ruby and Ice Queen, and myself?

Then I meet Todd. What a strange thing it is to meet him now. I am 52, have been alone for many years, and have stopped doing anything to make myself anything more than presentable for work. My friend sets us up, and I show up. And he shows up. He seems nice: taller than I am and skinnier, in a healthy way, like he jogs. His hair is thin, floating in the wind on top of his head. I think he should shave it or wear a hat. The way it looks now kind of reminds me of that president. Just in the hair of course, and thankfully, he is the exact opposite of that president in every other way. He’s soft spoken, kind, and interesting in a way where it’s like he isn’t trying to be interesting, which I guess I find interesting. And more than anything else, he wants to spend some time with me. So, it’s been six or seven weeks of doing exactly that, spending time: watching movies, ordering food, cooking food, talking, and then, yeah, some other stuff I haven't done in a long, long time. Something I had stopped hoping for. But as the saying goes…When you stop looking, it finds you, or something.

Todd comes over with a new microwave in his trunk. We are at my place because I don’t want to leave the dogs tonight. He understands this, which is great, and even though this has been the case for all dates but one, he hasn’t complained about it yet. Ruby loves him, but Ruby loves everyone. Ice Queen tolerates him, which is the best case scenario. So, he shows up, and knocks on my third floor apartment door. He’s winded and at his feet is a brand new microwave. He says little. We’ve talked about the bugs and he agrees they are coming from the microwave I have now. He walks into the kitchen, covers the old one with a big black garbage bag and carries it down to the curb out front. I say nothing. I just watch. I walk into the kitchen as he heads back up and the empty area where the utility had been is covered in dead bugs. They are splattered all over the wall that was hidden until moments ago. It looks like a massacre. I grab a clorox wipe and clean it up before he can see.

That night Todd falls asleep on my couch, Ruby is next to him, Ice Queen on the floor. I walk into the kitchen and there are no bugs. No one greets me. I think, hmm, I guess they really were all in the microwave. I walk over to the window and look out at the black bag on the curb. I wonder what will happen to them now?

           Ruby has diarrhea, which I guess is normal, but it paralyzes me. I can’t watch TV; every few minutes I look over at her and wonder if she has a stomach ache. (How would I know?) Thankfully, I have the backyard, and I can take her out in a hurry. She goes and stands by the door if she has to go. Such a good girl. Ice Queen would just shit all over the floor if she was sick.

I watch Ruby squat, her back legs shaking, at this point nothing comes out. I am so focused on her that I ignore Ice Queen, who is too quiet, so I swivel my head and see she is messing with an ant hill. Her little snout has flattened it. Her body is erect, still, but her peanut shaped head is vibrating as she destroys the miniature metropolis.

I rush over and push her off. “No!” She looks up at me like, yo--momma. Look at this shit! How can I expect her not to be fascinated by it? These little mounds on the ground, with thousands of these little creatures inside. I would be interested too, if I didn’t know what they were, of course. I imagine being a dog is a lot like being a human before science. When we would look to the sky and see clouds and the moon and stars and be inspired by the mere mystery of it all and could only assume it was God. When a storm would crush your house and it could only be dark magic or wrath. Maybe animals think like this, majestically, spiritually. I imagine, standing in my backyard, not being part of this race of creatures that years ago decided to take all the wonder out of everything and replace it with our own data. As if these numbers and charts and scales and “facts” are any less speculative and imaginary than aliens, ghosts and a higher power.

Then I think about the civilization in the microwave, which is now gone from the curb. If that really was a city, a dwelling. If time moves differently for them, and if they have been through a few generations in there: a grandfather with his grandkids, sitting around telling the lore about how his father settled this giant box. And then it was lifted, destroyed. A biblical event with which there were no survivors, except for the few that were out of the microwave, gathering food, the fathers, who are left behind in the walls of my kitchen, shocked and grief-stricken that their wives and their babies were lifted by the man and the woman, the gods, the evil gods, and destroyed. Now they are alone, destined to start again.

Oh well.

I hear a shuffle, a panic without words. I look back at Ruby, who I forgot about as I pulled Ice Queen off the ant hill. She has a bird in her mouth.

I scream, running over. How did she catch it? The bird is young, fully formed, and doesn’t seem injured. I pull Ruby off. I slap her back lightly, but yell loudly. She drops the bird. She hates when I’m mad at her, and she already thinks I am--something that happens every time she is sick, for a reason I can’t figure out. I turn around and Ice Queen’s nose is back in the ant hill. I scream at her too. She looks up at me, uncaring, and immediately returns to her destruction. I let it go. The bird, and whether or not Ruby will kill it, is more important.

I pull Ruby by the collar and yell, “No, No” She cowers.

The bird is not dead, but it’s convulsing. Flapping and bouncing off the ground. I can see part of its insides—intestines and organs—pulsing outside its body. Its beak is opening but no noise is escaping. Ruby wants to finish it off, and part of me wants to let her, but she’s already sick and this won't help.

I must be wailing because Joe, my downstairs neighbor, comes out. Joe is a short heavy-set man, older than me by a decade, a recently retired plumber.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I just point. I cover my mouth with my hand. He looks at the suffering creature.

“Ice Queen did this, huh?” He smiles.

“Kill it! It’s suffering!” “Okay, okay. You take them inside.”

As I am walking through the little alley on the side of the two family home that leads to my entrance, I hear the thuds of Joe’s shovel landing on the ground. I am relieved the bird is no longer suffering.

I am inside now, rubbing both their mouths with baby wipes. I can’t stand still. I’m crying and I want to stop, but I can’t. There is a knock at my door, and I know it’s Joe and really don’t want to see him, or have him see me like this. But I answer. He stands there, so calm. Ruby and Ice Queen join me at the door. All four of us are murderers. Joe makes some stupid joke to Ice Queen about the bird. My brain doesn’t process it. How can he joke at a time like this?

           He tells me the bird is no longer suffering, and just wants to make sure I’m okay. I lie and tell him I’m fine. Before he walks down the stairs he turns and says, “Hey, there are a ton of fire ants out back there. Maybe you shouldn’t take the babies (that’s what he knows I call my dogs) out back for a while. You don’t want to bring those things into your house.”

“OK. Thank you.”

“I am going to see my daughter for two weeks in Pennsylvania, but then I will get an exterminator.”

I text Todd and tell him that both Ruby and I are sick and put our plans off for the following night. I can tell he is not happy.

*

Todd brings his unhappiness over the next night instead, and I compound it by saying I would rather not go to a restaurant. Ruby has been sick and I want to keep an eye on her. He responds with a lecture. “It’s not normal to never leave your dogs alone. They are dogs. They will be fine. Plus, you said he was, you know, going, normally this morning. “

I don’t know why he can’t just say, “pooping.”

He keeps half bringing it up all evening. He asks if I was like this with my old dog, Lady. I tell him, not really, but I could bring Lady most places. I can’t do that with these two. I mean, I could with Ruby, but definitely not Ice Queen, and I would never separate them.

He seems to get over it. We order some Chinese food. He has this chicken with sesame seeds on it, an egg roll, and pork fried rice. I think about how many different animals sit on his plate. Their skin, their meat, them. They had different personalities, were from different places, they had wanted to do something that day, the day they were killed. They were looking forward to something: their next meal, an affection from another bird or pig they lived with. Something. And there they were, oily and half eaten on Todd’s plate in my apartment.

I have some steamed vegetables, and brown rice. I put a piece of broccoli on my fork and wonder the same thing. As kids, we learned that plants were “living”, right? Yet, even the most staunch vegan eats plants. I mean, that’s all they eat. But I think, as the movie I am not paying attention to blares away too loudly behind where I hold my piece of broccoli in front of my eye line, if this was living, how are we, the vegans, not making the same decisions that the meat eaters are making? We are deciding that this living thing is less important and deserves to be destroyed by us.

“Is everything okay with your food?” Todd is looking at me as I hold my fork in front of my face.

“Yeah. It’s really good.” I put the little tree in my mouth, and as I chew I hear screams echoing inside my mouth, down my throat.

*

I start to see the change in my reflection within only a couple of days. My cheeks look sunken; they seem to start lower on my face. It’s no mystery. I haven’t had an appetite since the last night Todd came over, which was over two weeks ago. Since that night, every time I take a bite of food I can hear it scream. As I chew, the screams fade, but the projection of that living thing being stolen from its home, the bush, the field, the vine, the wind, and entering my wet, hot mouth, being crushed, drained of all its constitution, and going down the dark tunnel into my acid filled stomach stitches across my mind.

Todd is coming over tonight, and he wants to talk. I know this is the end, and I know I should care. I was able to put it off the first few days, the first week, by lying about myself and the dogs, but it quickly became obvious. And I guess I do owe him this much.

He talks a lot about nothing. About his feelings, mostly. I sit on my couch, across from where he sits on my couch, and I listen to this man, this murderer, talk about his feelings of loneliness, anxiety, disappointment. This, the same man who encouraged me and helped me destroy an entire population of living creatures. I think I can see bits of dead flesh in his teeth.

The rest of the evening goes on without event. Todd is looking at me a lot, waiting for me to say something important, something about us, but there is no energy there for it, and eventually he storms out, slams the door, as if hurting the door, or it’s frame, could 

prove any point after what I’ve seen him destroy.

*

           The only true way is reparation. It’s an old building so thankfully there are bugs ready with little to no help from me. A few nights in, when I turn off my kitchen light, then forget I need a glass of water, I go back in and there are two in the sink. I look at them, tread carefully and try not to scare them off. I fill up my cup from the Britta and take out an apple. I cut it into slices, exposing its juices, and leave it on the counter. I switch off the light and take my water into the bedroom. Ruby and Ice Queen follow. We all sleep peacefully.

The next day, after waking up to an apple with no bugs on it, I stop by the corner store and buy a bag of cheap loli-pops. I open them and suck on them, just for a moment each, and start to leave them on the counter, on the kitchen and bathroom floor. I have to put up the gates so Ruby and Ice Queen don’t go in and eat them up, which I feel badly about, but it’s my job to help these creatures rebuild after I helped destroy their habitat. Ruby’s big brown eyes look up at me, but as a dog parent you sometimes have to be firm and provide profound experiences they could never achieve with their limited consciousness. I believe humans can increase the lives of other living things and this is our most overlooked calling. Most of us make life intolerable for all our fellow species.

It takes a few days of leaving food out before the bugs really start to come. It gets to the point where I can hear them scurrying around, living, creating a home. I wonder if I will become a figure in their lore, a sort of Greek tragedy about the god who at first unfairly punished and destroyed an entire civilization only to change her ways and build the greatest indoor bug population known to man. Or bug. This is the opportunity I have.

On the fourth day of my mission I get a phone call. It’s Todd.

“Listen, I didn’t want to alarm you before I knew anything definite, but a couple of days after leaving your place I found some bites on my stomach and on my legs. They were bites of three or four, in straight vertical lines. I went to my friend Harry, you know, the dermatologist, and he confirmed that they were bed bug bites. I had my place checked into, and thank god, there are none here. So I have to deduce that I picked them up at your place.”

“Bed bugs?”

“Yes, bed bugs. Your place was the only place I have been where I could have picked up the bites.”

I walk over to my couch and look closely. I don’t see anything.

“I don’t see any bugs on my couch.”

“Well, that’s the thing. You can’t see them. They are too small.”

I wait. He says my name, and I snap at him. “What?”

“You will have to get an exterminator in. Do you need help with that?

I say no and hang up. I’m tired of his voice already, even in this short conversation. Could it be true? Are there microscopic bugs on my couch, in my bed? A moment of disappointment interrupts my excitement when I realize this might be a ruse, an attempt of Todd’s to insert himself back into my life.

But it isn’t. Todd never calls me again, and then the bites appear. I get them everywhere: all over my belly, my legs, my back, my neck, even on my hands. I sit on my couch, Ruby and Ice Queen with me, and imagine them swarming me, building their kingdom.

I wonder if life can be replaced. I decide that no, it can’t. We wouldn’t give a murderer a pass because he had a child. So, my decision not to exterminate the bed bugs does not cancel out my previous holocaust.

I continue to leave food out. Cornbread, apples, half finished lollipops which I put behind the toilet and in the corners of my bedroom. Fruit flies come easily, like ancient explorers after the publication of a new map.

All sorts of life appears inside my apartment. They arrive in the thousands. It’s magical, beautiful. Where do they all come from, I wonder. It isn’t possible that they are all born from my small adjustments to their habitat, that I can cultivate this much life with such simple actions. And if it is, was I then a sort of God? No. This means they were already here and just waiting. I watch television at night, programs, the news, etc. Fictional doctors and terrorists, and real life politicians and news anchors, all speaking about seemingly important things. But all these things are made up, involve their egos and where they saw their image in the story of life. And here I am, inside these walls, creating life, beating hearts and minds that work toward goals. There is but one earth that we know of, and when we die, at the end, how much life did we bring into it? How much energy is left over from our being here? How much influence?

More weeks pass. They just seem to keep going, and I realize that I have less time. All I can bring myself to eat is bread and some nuts. I don’t enjoy a single bite knowing that there are elements of living, now purposefully murdered, life within even these items. I look at Ruby and Ice Queen. They look older. Their hair has changed colors. Brighter in some areas, darker in others. They continue to eat twice a day, and as I watch them inhale other living things I feel sorry for them. They can’t help it. They can’t know better. Only I can. I look in the mirror and can hardly recognize myself. I’m just a body. The thing we leave behind for good reason. I hope wherever I go next is wherever they go next.

*

I lay in my backyard. I feel the worms on my skin. I think. I don’t check. I feel the mud. It’s nice and cold and damp from the rain that was here the past few days. It’s still grey and I wonder where the colors come from. I try to look past the clouds, towards the bright white that is the sky today, and for the first time in my life, in my 57 years, I see it. It’s a dome, a glass case. I begin to laugh, fully aware of how dangerous and menacing the laugh would sound to someone watching me. But nobody is watching me. My body bounces in the mud as I chuckle. I can’t control it, and it feels so good to release it. Here we are, all of us, me and my neighbors and the people driving past, and the people on TV, none of us any different from the bugs in my apartment, from my lovely Ice Queen and my wonderful Ruby. I get to exist here, inside this glass case of a world, creating life, with the two most beautiful, kind creatures.

I look over at Ruby. She sits down suddenly and itches her stomach with her back paw. I extend a hand (neither dog thinks it’s odd I lay in the dirt.) Ruby ignores it and goes over to sniff the same bush I have seen her sniff so many times. Ice Queen sees my outreached hand out and slowly walks over to sniff it. I look at my own arm and see it is covered in red ants. They must have been using it as a bridge to somewhere.

I study Ice Queen, studying the ants. Life, purpose, movement. And then I see it.

It’s right in the middle of her forehead. A black dot. I looked closer. I get up on my elbow, the same elbow carrying the colony of workers. I forget they are there, disregard what happens to them. I move onto my knees. I grab Ice Queen’s collar and look close.

The black dot has legs. It’s crawling somewhere.

I lean in and pull it off her. It’s on my thumb. It is a tick.

I crush it with my pointer finger. I look like I am making the universal symbol for money. I feel it curl and twist and I look. It’s crumpled, destroyed, dead. There are small stains of blood on my fingers. Ice Queen is safe.

I get up, dust my body off with my hands, grab the leashes, whistle, and we head inside.