Their feet are soft as they crawl up and down bedroom walls an bathroom stalls. Long lines that wiggle in the twilight hours. October in India: take one wee spoonful of turmeric and rinse your mouth with honey. The girl mixes matcha tea with a small spoon in the ceramic cups that’s made it across three oceans. She counts six stray ants and takes it as a sign to drink more coconut milk. Fats encourages Ojas, the Ayurvedic Counsellor says into the microphone. It’s fuzzy and the girl misunderstands, his lips move but all she hears is buzz-buzz-buzz.

How do you pray—she kneels down to ask the ants. Fingertips to the floor, forehead bowed: waiting. They never reply. The crickets chirp in the bathroom. The girl waved them in; she craves companionship and the ants are too busy. She enjoys the gentle bleep-bleep-bleep. One cricket has taken up residence under the toilet. Perhaps it like the cool porcelain umbrella.

The girl rubs her body with sesame seed oil. She should be out in a pan and fried with the beans served at midday. Red, green, brown and yellow lentils. You can never have too much protein! The spiders arrive with their prescriptions. Tsk-tsk, says the girl with her lips pursed: I’m praying. The black spider hangs its web in the closet next to the girls white dresses. She likes to hang the silk robes from the mirror where they ripple with the breeze from the ceiling fan. She watches the ruffled hemline snap and flutter.

You’re such a flirt, sings the spider. Besides, you already know how to pray— just keep your hands busy. She watches as it weaves the ants into little gossamer thread packets. Bite-sized and beautiful, she forgets to be merciful. Some live while others die. It is not fair, she screams at the spider. What is it to be merciful? The girl needs a witness for her madness: there are two ants left and they’ve taken up residence in her ceramic cup. She shakes them onto the floor: an offering for the arachnid. It smiles from the centre of its glittery wheel; now you understand what it is to pray.

Photo source.