Pinned under glass

I fed the females today. Mealworms, one each. Watched the smaller one lunge and miss and lunge again. I respect the persistence. I think I have been thinking about Wikus for four days straight and the females do not know or care. That is the honest part of keeping them. They do not need me to be okay.

I reread the Wikus letter. Three things wrong with the wording, exactly as I predicted. The word regrettable is doing a lot of work in that paragraph. Regrettable is what you say when you are not sorry. I am building a small folder in my head of men who use regrettable. My dad used a different one. Difficult. As in, you are being difficult, Daria. As if the temperature outside had a name and it was mine.

I thought about calling M. Not to say anything. Just to hear her phone ring out so I would know the line still worked. She is in Sea Point, or she was. I do not check anymore. I scrolled her old texts instead, the ones from before I left, and they read like someone I used to know. That is the worst kind of stranger — the kind whose voice you still recognise but whose jokes have stopped being yours.

The gravid female. I keep thinking about her under her rock. If I went back I would lift the same slate and find either her or the place where she was. Either one would ruin me a little. So I will not go back.