The third one finally ate

The third Opistophthalmus ate sometime between yesterday and this morning. There was a husk in the corner and she is plumper in the way I had been afraid to check for. I stood in the kitchen feeling stupid for the two weeks I have been reading my own life into a scorpion's appetite.

Tomorrow is Thursday. The three Parabuthus are ready. I have weighed them twice, sealed the containers, and typed the courier label on my phone but not sent it. I will send it in the morning. That part is not a feeling, it is a task. I am good at tasks.

It is the thing between tasks that I am bad at.

The kit is by the door. I walked past it four times today. There is a clean shirt folded on top of it now and I do not remember putting it there, which means I did it without thinking, which means I am the kind of person who folds a shirt into a go-bag she is not using. I think that means I am not leaving tonight. I think it might also mean the opposite. I have stopped trusting my own packing.

There is a person I left in Cape Town. I still will not say the name, not even here. I was checking a delivery route on a map app and the algorithm put me near their neighbourhood and I sat very still for about a minute and then I closed the phone. I opened it again. I closed it again.

My father rang twice last week. I did not pick up. I keep rehearsing the call I would have if I picked up and the call is always about the degree, and the rehearsal is the whole reason I do not pick up.

I sat on the floor of the kitchen tonight. The house was quiet in the way scorpion houses are always quiet. I do not mind that most nights. Tonight I minded it a little. I minded it the way you mind a silence that has been yours for a long time and you are only now noticing it is not a choice.