“Have you tried these?” your friend asks. “They’re from Ecuador.”
She shows you a small tin of dark chocolate lozenges. You take one gratefully and put it in your mouth. It begins to melt pleasantly. You enjoy the sweetness, the little rush of pleasure chocolate always gives you.
The chocolate melts away. Inside it’s a bug. You feel it waving its feathery antennae, tickling the roof of your mouth. It stretches its long spindly legs and crawls down your tongue. Before you can stop it the bug slides down your throat and is gone.
Your friend laughs at your shock and disgust. “See? It’s marvelous!”
You laugh at yourself to wash away the bitter taste of her trickery. Hours pass. You enjoy dinner and her tales of a far-off country where they serve tins of chocolate-covered bugs. You don’t think it can still be alive in there: surely another glass of wine will have drowned it? Surely even a bug that can survive days or weeks encased in rich dark chocolate will have died in your stomach acid by now?
But perhaps not. You’re not an entomologist, you know little of how hardy these fragile-seeming creatures can be. They live in volcanic vents on the ocean floor. They live in fissures on ancient Antarctic glaciers. They thrived millions of years ago, and when our kind have turned this world to toxic ash they will thrive as our damned bones fade. A little acid and darkness are nothing to them.
Lying in bed, you’re not sure you can’t feel it’s sticklike legs crawling inside you. A little cup of Pepto should have coated it in chalky pink goo. So you must be imagining it. You fall asleep and dream of nesting dolls: the first smiles, the second frowns, the third cries, and the fourth doll has a face of such perfect horror that you wake screaming. You flip the sweat -soaked pillow and go back to sleep.
The clock goes off far too soon. The sun casts thin shafts between long shadows, and as you step through both you have nearly forgotten the bug. You imagine its feathery antennae like tiny peacock feathers coated in corn flakes. You think of your schedule, your meetings, a phone call you have to make. Your briefcase is a pleasant weight in your hand. Your steps ring sharp on the sidewalk.
Passing a coffee shop, you catch the scents of espresso and chocolate. And you remember the face of the fourth doll, twisted in a silent scream.
