I woke up and walked outside, thinking “God life is gorgeous; it smells like
vacation.” A week later, the first round of planes swarmed the horizon. Locusts
crawled up our sinks, gasping for shelter. I was thinking of drowning in locusts
when I cut my hand opening an industrial-sized can of peaches at work. The
blood billowed in the syrup and I thought the peaches looked like tiny sleeping
fetuses. My boss came over and yanked my hand away, snarling “Scoop out
only the fruit you bled on.” I bandaged the cut that night, but couldn’t manage
to keep the ashes out.