No Relief

By Fallton Havenstonne

Carl rubbed his eye. He felt like something had gotten into it. Maybe it was a hair, a gnat, or a bead of sweat?

He was mowing the lawn in his backyard when he saw a horde of ants invading his beautifully manicured garden. There were thousands of them—maybe hundreds of thousands. It looked like someone had doused gasoline oil all over his garden. Where did the ants come from?

Carl walked over to the garden and noticed a plethora of anthills surrounding the flowers. They looked like they were popping out from the soil. No wonder there were so many ants, he thought. There was only one way to fix this problem: mow them down.

Carl clutched his lawnmower and steered it toward the garden. He pushed the lawnmower over his beautifully manicured garden until it flattened everything in sight. Just as the lawnmower sliced the flowers and bulldoze the anthills, the ants scattered away frantically. Everything spewed out from the side discharge like confetti. When it was all over, the ants were gone.

Carl let out a sigh, then rubbed his eye again. Why was it so itchy?

He stepped onto his demolished garden, then bit his lip in irritation. He hated ants more than ever now. Then he felt his neck swelling from a bug bite. Soon, the swelling spread behind his ear. Carl smacked his neck to get the bug, but it had escaped.

As he started mowing again, the itchiness wouldn’t let up. It had gotten to the point that he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Carl turned off the lawnmower and raced inside the house with the screen door swinging closed behind him. He ran to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet. He splashed water all over his ear and neck, but that didn’t help. Soon, the swelling had spread to his face—even to his lip and tongue. It felt like needles—tasted putrid for some reason.

He put his mouth up to the faucet, but couldn’t get the strange taste out of his mouth. Everything got worse. What had bitten him? Was it a wasp? He was allergic to them—knew this would be a pain to get through if it was.

Carl raced into the bathroom and flipped on the light switch. What he saw in the mirror made his jaw drop. An army of ants was crawling all over his face, racing up into his scalp, and down his neck too. He clawed at the ants, scratching up his face in frenzy. That was when his wife, Linda, appeared at doorway, puzzled and shocked.

“What are you doing, Carl?”

“They’re all over me!” he cried. “There’re too many of them!”

“What’s all over you?”

“The ants!”

“Ants? I don’t see any ants on you.”

“Don’t just stand there. Get them off me!”

“Get what off you? There’s nothing there.”

She grabbed his hands and held them up to his eyes.

“See. There’s nothing on you,” she said.

He gazed at his hands and didn’t see any ants. He looked back at the mirror and the ants were all over his face. But when he glanced back at his hands, they were gone. He felt like he was losing his mind, uncertain of what to believe: the mirror or his eyes.

The swelling and itchiness started to soar. He clawed at every part of his face and neck. It was like watching a man trying to put out a non-existent fire.

“Stop it!” Linda cried. “There’s nothing on you!”

She grabbed his wrists, but he yanked them back. No matter how much he scratched his face, neck and hands, there was no relief. He felt like a million ants were crawling on him—burrowing into his skin like parasites.

“Wait! I see it,” Linda exclaimed.

“You do?” he said, his eyes glinting with hope.

“Yes. Stand still. I’ll pull it out.”

“Pull it out from where?”

“Just stand still. It’s in your eye,” she said, reaching into his pupil with her fingernails.

“Hurry,” he said, gritting his teeth in agony.

Linda reached into his eye and carefully clasped the tail end of what appeared to be a worm. She pulled it out slowly, its slim body peeling out from his iris like a tapeworm. Carl shrieked as the worm wriggled from his eye—releasing sharp pain in his optic nerve.

When she had finally removed it, all of the itchiness and pain had subsided, albeit, his right eye was blurry. Carl relaxed for the first time in what seemed like an hour. He regarded the worm, which Linda held between her fingers. Its body was about a foot long. Its slimy body tried to wriggle loose, but Linda pinched it tightly.

“How in the world did this get in your eye?” Linda said.

“Beats me,” Carl said. “I was mowing the lawn when my eye started to itch.”

Carl was about to touch the worm when it swung back and forth as if it wanted to get back into his eye. He retracted his hand—thought about getting a pair of scissors.

“Where did it come from?” Linda asked.

“The garden, I think.”.

“Ouch!” Linda gasped.

Pain swelled in her thumb.

She let go and the worm dropped onto the hardwood floor. Carl tried to stomp on it, but it was too fast. It snaked its way across the floor, heading toward the living room. It went straight for Millie, their ten-year-old Labrador, who was sleeping comfortably in the dog bed.

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