except it wasn’t chicken clear or clear chicken
but filled with ants.
Mummy, it’s filled with ants
Eat it all up,she says
But Mummy they’re ants, ants !
She doesn’t believe me,
and so she forces me
and scolds me,
and frightens me,
to eat the ant soup
(She says I’m a horrid horrid daughter).
Not just a nightmare this.
I can feel them crawling
on my tongue,
running helter-skelter
on my Colgated teeth
then scampering about ,
in my eesofaegus
and playing in my In-testines.
They’re all inside me,
itching to get out
through my Mummy-clipped fingernails,
and my toes,
and my eyes .
All going wriggle wriggle wriggle.
Daddy says I’m being naughty again.
Why doesn’t anybody believe me?
By God, they’re eating me eating me eating me.
We don’t believe you, they say.
Why should anybody believe me?
My mouth is full of ants.
*~
(This was previously published in a print version of eFiction India)
Please let me know your thoughts!
Archita Mittra: writer, editor & artist 