May 2025 Bugs and Betrayal-Flash Fiction by Emily RAwlings

I slipped from a tree, (an oak tree) and an ant bit me. I was climbing an oak tree (barefooted) on the only day when the sun could not crisp my skin (bare skin, skin easily bitten). I was wearing overalls and cowboy boots, boots I took off to climb the tree (the tree with ants)] during a walk because my mother wanted me to get out of the house.

My mother told me that I needed to get out of the house (she said I looked pale. I am an indoor person), but there are spiders, flies, dragonflies, yellowjackets, stink bugs, light-seeking bugs, scorpions, beetles, moths, centipedes, and millipedes (and ants) that fill the sky, cover the ground, and infest the greenery (and live in trees), so I did not feel inclined to leave the environment I have personalized with my items of preference decorations of dead, not live insects. (I have scorpions framed behind glass that entraps and immobilizes their bodies my room is mostly empty so that bugs can be easily hunted down since they are without asylums behind paintings or trinkets).

However, my mother’s wishes prevailed, so I exited my room (bug-free room, my room that held trophies of deceased insects) and headed towards the oak trees (trees good for climbing, trees that I did not expect were infested with ants).

 I decided to climb Higginbottom (the name of the oak tree.) My mother likes to name the trees. She said that Higginbottom sounds like “hidden bottom,” and trees have hidden bottoms (roots), so I took off my cowboy boots (boots used to protect me from the insects, boots that do not have any grip) and set them at the bottom of the tree. I jumped onto the first branch that was grazing the grass below and walked up its altitude (barefooted, did not have any boots on).

Looking up, I searched for the highest branch  that  could  bear   my  weight  as  I  would  propel  myself  upwards 

 (towards  the top of Higginbottom, where the ants lived), and I jumped up to grab a hold of another branch overhead and wrapped my legs (with feet, feet that are bare) around the trunk. I pulled and shimmied myself upwards, around, and on top of the branch I was holding. I was laying on my stomach over the branch I had just conquered, using my feet against the trunk to push myself further onto the branch (Panting. I did not actually know how to climb a tree. I was trying my best). The bark broke off, battering my bare feet, and unveiled an infestation of ants. Ants that inspected my flesh and determined I was invading their intentional privacy (they were planning a barrage). I screamed like a girl (like a girl bitten by ants barefooted). Betrayal.

Higginbottom (infested) was not only hiding its bottom (roots); Higginbottom (infested with ants) was buzzing with backstabbing and feet-biting bugs.