WE ARE SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY

Termites have started eating my house. I can hear them devouring, hundreds, thousands of them claiming the house as their own. Munching along, oh so tender. Tender. Gratifying their taste buds. The termites leave tiny dunes of sawdust, perfectly sewn in the ridges of the wood. They swell with moisture. I can’t help myself from touching the organs of the house so neatly arranged. Perfectly placed. Perfectly positioned. My fingers turn into a sparkling splintered abyss. 

*

I remember now that I forgot to clean out the fridge. Any day now the white plastic box will give up, leave its door hanging open, drooling and oozing out various liquids. A last buzz and flicker until the lightbulb clatters and rings its bell of death. I wonder if I should host a funeral when the day comes. It seems rude to not write a proper eulogy for all those years of work, carrying the contents of my consumption. The fridge guy will come and heave it onto a sack truck, the front door nicked by a corner as if to haunt me for letting it rust and stink of week-old sushi on my watch. For now though, the fridge still stands and I have to redeem myself and give it the first and last deep cleaning it will ever have. 

*

There’s milk spilling from the carton. I guess I didn’t screw the cap on tight enough. It’s actually oat milk. It would crush my inner child to know where the calves go. I try not to hurt her. I soak the milk up with a mound of paper towels, the quicker picker upper™ because otherwise it will keep dripping and start to grow thick and spoil and rot and splinter the wooden floor. And the fridge will hate me even more, because now I’ve ruined its foundation. Its solidity. But no matter how long I soak the milk in paper towels the damned milk keeps leaking. That commercial of the put-together-family lied. No absorption whatsoever. I should get a refund. But then I have to live with the fact that I’ve become one of those people who weigh their cereal boxes just because the amount of marshmallows is unproportional to the amount of bland O’s. 

*

The termites keep getting louder and milk has started to appear all over the house. Google says it might be carpenter ants or a mix of both. I’ve listened to several youtube videos of their chewing sounds, trying to decipher the culprits. You have to listen for their pattern. I’ve been inspecting the piles they leave behind too. Carpenter ants leave behind sawdust. They just dig to nest. Termites leave behind their shit. They eat the wood to survive. Even though both excrements look the same, they are actually quite different. I’ve been printing out images. Comparing color and consistency. 

*

Everything smells sour and of baby spit-up. The heaters gurgle as they fill with milk trying to heat up the house like a bottle warmer which really isn’t effective. I’m starting to pee milk and I’ve called the doctor with the meaty arms and bleached teeth and he doesn’t seem concerned. Maybe I should invite the millennial and gen-z neighbors over with their precious mason jars and recycled cardboard cups that are absolutely useless but who gives a fuck at this point. And they’ll think I’m a lunatic because there is no milk in the house. But there is. There is. There is. 

*

What If I drowned in oat milk, submerged in that heavenly lactation. That would be so instagram worthy. Young woman, found dead in bathtub. Police confirmed oat milk as the liquid. But such a glorious death is unrealistic. So I stick my head into the fridge to feel the cool breeze because I crave that frozen air that touches every crevice of my body. And then my mother calls and I tell her I’ve been setting ladybugs free all day. She asks me if I’m happy and I tell her yes, mom which I will say again when she asks a second time. A third time. And maybe a fourth. She says I really need to get the termite problem under control. She says to call the hot exterminator because he might give me a discount if I’d put on some make-up for once and wear something sluttier than sweatpants and a black turtleneck. I pray she can’t smell the damp milk on my clothes. 

*

I went to the appliance store this morning to look at new fridges. They have all sorts of refrigerators there, the ones with crushed ice dispensers because boy, do Americans love their cups of ice, and a retro mint-color one which won’t last very long but is super aesthetic. I stutter through the rows of generic plastic boxes. They look like coffins. Long rectangles with lots of empty space for all the junk you don’t want your relatives to have. I asked the appliance guy about warranty, and if other customers are having the milk problem. He said no, ma’am. But that’s what they have to say. I think we all pretend. Everyone sits so fucking still and pretends. 

*

I bought a Rothko. A color field painting. He was a troubled man. The print came today in a box far too big for its content. I talked to the delivery guy about it, but he said I’m just the package guy and hurried off. I’ve seen Rothko’s work in real life, in a museum with the little sticker for your sweater and everything. The walls were painted a mix of dark mauve and maroon. Almost black depending on where the light fell. His paintings are layers and layers of deep hues. A slow buildup of paint. A void. They make my insides move. I decided to sit on the floor, among the other children on a school tour. They gawked suspiciously and giggled to one another. Just like being an adult. Eventually the children were rounded up, flocking like sheep and were hurried to the next room. One left a clipboard with a worksheet attached. It asked: What do you feel? The child gave no answer. 

*

I’ve started collecting the milk in baby bottles. I went to Walmart and just filled my cart up. Some have little duckies on them. Some are pink. Some are blue. They were more expensive than anticipated. I milked the house. I went about every corner of the house and squeezed milk into the little bottles. I scooped up the puddled milk with my bare hands. I put each bottle neatly next to the other into the fridge. I’m thinking of placing an ad on Facebook. I’ve got milk! For all you cow killers and lactating mothers, come hither and grab a bottle. 

*

Just like my dehydrated, dying fridge, I can move without thinking, with automation. My body is intact. It gushes with life, with movement, with pulse. Seamlessly running without an internal drive. A machine to the daily schedule, fingers like antennas crawling. We are all just moving through. I wonder: how far can you push a body before it breaks? 

*

I went to the grocery store and bought a cantaloupe. An artificial-looking one, with perfect smooth skin and a neon orange glow. I dig my nails into the fleshy melon and let it break as it hits the ground. The chunks fracture across the floor. It’s been a longstanding dream of mine to smash bottles in a grocery store. To just stand in the shards. The mothers linger with their filled shopping charts. They shake their heads. They tell their children to face away. They stare at my unshaven bleeding legs. But I’m not bleeding blood anymore. Instead that mealy milk has thickened and pools out of my skin. But that’s probably not an appropriate behavior. It would scar a child’s mind for sure, and probably end up in a lawsuit. So I smash cantaloupes instead. If I ever give birth I will name the child cantaloupe. It slithers perfectly off the tongue. But I’m flat-chested so it wouldn’t have enough to drink. It would wither. I think I’d rather have a cat anyway. 

*

Today, I learned that I am more animal than human. A feral species of a sort who claws its way barefoot through the dirt and howls with the coyotes. A shapeless creature without a sense of self. Whose fuzzy and rough at the same time. It can fly and curl itself into a pocket-sized bundle. I had the sudden realization when an animalistic urge came through me to dig a hole in the backyard and crawl into it. My neighbor, Frank, sat in his plastic beach chair in checkered briefs and raised his grey unruly eyebrows, peering through the chicken-wire fence. I suppose he found it odd. I don’t mind though. 

*

The milk has started to trickle through the floorboards. The neighborhood cat crawls under the house and lets the milk drip into her mouth. She sits there frozen in the dirt. Face tilted to the sky. Leather tongue porcelain-pink. I tried to lure her inside with frozen salmon. She just took the whole piece in her mouth and disappeared. She left a dirt trail. The next day I found a dead canary on the porch. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a wild bird, but someone’s beloved pet. I buried it in the hole in the backyard when my animalistic urges subsided. 

*

I found this old neuro evaluation section labelled notable psychiatric family history. That would be a nice engraving for my gravestone– notable psychiatric family history. I mean everyone’s notable for their science accomplishments and humanitarian deeds and whatever else there is to be notable for. But people will look at my grave and say wow, I haven’t seen that before. Her parents must have been proud. All these beautiful disorders in one big happy family. One pulled out her hair, the boys clipped bird wings and the little one well, we don’t know what’s wrong with her. But she has milk hallucinations and writes eulogies for dying appliances. 

*

The house is infested with bugs now; the milk has attracted cicadas, along with the termites and ladybugs. They stick to the curtains. Build nests under my toothbrush. The lights are spotted with little bodies and wings. They lather in my unwashed dishes. They harbor in my potted ferns. There is a constant buzzing. A monotone hum surrounds the house. A pulsating sound that creeps and lurks and rings like a broken cowbell. It irritates me. It irritates the house. It irritates the fridge who starts to bang its doors open and closed.

*

I went to buy another cantaloupe and some cat food at the supermarket. I drove twenty minutes with the music blasting. Jammin along. Really I went because I craved a gin and tonic with frozen cherries. But not the bag from the freezer. That random bag you find abandoned among the canned tomatoes, pearly with refrigerator dew. I take all the abandoned food with me, displaced from their aisles. I nestle them in my arms and cradle them softly on the way to the cashier. She asks me, would you like a bag? I shake my head. Public speaking scares me. Instead I place the two butters in either coat pocket, the gin under my left armpit, tonic under the right, and stack the frozen cherries along with the cat food in my hands. 

*

Sometimes in the animal world, mothers eat their children. It’s considered a form of parental care. They know if their children are sick when they are born. They consume them to protect them from a life of misery. To kill off the weak ones. The ones who can’t stand up. The ones who wobble. The ones who don’t know where to go. Their children give them the nutrients they need to live. They feed off their children’s lives. 

*

The milk has started flooding the basement. I have to wade through the thick pool with rain boots two sizes too small to grab the lightbulbs that I’ve needed for weeks. I’ve already forgotten where they are needed. All the cardboard boxes are soaking, decomposing in the sea of milk. It doesn’t make sense to try and save them now. I’m still considering inviting the eco-maniac neighbors over with their collapsible straws but they’d probably want me to discontinue use of my fridge forever. It’s old they’ll say so much energy to keep it running and my poor little fridge will bad-mouth me all night after they left because I didn’t defend its integrity. 

*

There’s a child who appears in the puddles of milk now. A reflection of some sort, a distortion. The child’s face is purple, squishy and freckled, so much color crammed inside too little space. I try to face away while the child gapes with its big goofy eyes at my back and mashes its puffy palms together in uncontrolled rhythm. But it bores into my back and I can’t help but watch it for hours. Turning and twisting in its liquid home. It tumbles in glee. Its little orb of secreting protection. It fumes and folds into itself and sits watching all the darkness drag along as the day passes. 

*

There are forests that eat and drink fog. The mosses and lichen absorb the moisture. Their whole ecosystem is dependent on the fog’s appearance. Without the fog, the whole lush palace starves to death. The whole forest craves the fog. They need the fog. Maybe my house needs the milk just like those forests do. It seems to be producing more and more every day. Over-lactating. The fridge smells sour. My sheets smell sour. The whole place smells sour. I don’t know which puddles came first. I should because they will spoil first and I need to soak them up. The fridge is more unhappy than ever. It’s developed a burble from deep inside itself. It spews out milk when I walk past it. I’ve learned to carry paper towels wherever I go. 

*

I called the exterminator today. He said that depending on the state of the damage, I might need to rebuild the foundation or perhaps the entire house. I told him he couldn’t hurt the termites or the carpenter ants or the cicadas or the ladybugs. I’ll see what I can do he says. That isn’t a good enough of a response for me. I hang up the phone. I need this house. If the bugs care for me as much as I do, they’ll leave a bit of the house for me. 

*

Bees started to appear in my living room today. The milk is so thick it can be harvested like pollen. They roll the white orbs onto their fragile backs. It seeps into their furry bodies. They are confused. They are angry. Where has the milk gone? They try again. And again. And again until they cannot fly. Their bodies are filled with milk. Drenched. They leak milk. Their bodies turn white, glazed and seething. An ocean of anger frosted white. 

*

My mom calls again. Are you happy? I want to scream at the fridge, at the over-lactating house, at the bugs, at the phone, at my spindly legs. It’s useless. I never took self-defense. I never learned how to scream. 

*

There is no more chewing coming from the walls. I find them. All of them. The termites. The carpenter ants. The cicadas. The ladybugs. The bees. They float, belly upwards in the pools of milk. They squirm. They writhe. They thrust their little legs and wings. I can hear them struggle, beating their bodies against the thick milk. I try to save them. No chance. I’m too delicate. I’m too weak. I’m too much of nothing. I watch them suffer. I cry over the dead bodies. The fridge weeps milk.