Flashback: Silverfish
So this was originally published in volume 10 of the University of Manitoba student magazine Chesterfield about 3 years ago. They no longer seem to exist, but I really appreciated the opportunity!
Silverfish, always silverfish - little shimmering flecks of quicksilver that could be beautiful, graceful. It's the almost that gets me. A thing should be. Be pure. Be evil. Be dead. Be anything, but almost and yet almost is the word I live with, always almost. Almost beautiful. Almost smart. Almost a success. Almost in love. I would rather be an abject failure - at least that has finality, but no I'm left with this. A paltry almost...and silverfish.
Under every pile of discarded possessions, beneath every book, even between the pages. Always fleeing the light: gnawing, destroying. They crave sugar, sugar found in the glue that binds books, carpet, and countless other memories. Day after day, watching them eat away my life. Book by book and now they eat my soul.
All I've collected, a lifetime of hollow possessions, empty possibilities. My friends, my lovers between the pages - slowly eaten, destroyed. Who can save us know? Perhaps it's all for the best. Who will claim them when I am gone? Forsaken on a thrift store shelf. No. Better we die together, slowly decay, slowly eaten until we die hollow shells of rot.
This house I name my grave. This night my wake, these my friends all as dead or dying as myself. All rotting, save these silver undertakers feasting on our flesh. Silverfish, my personal almost comfort.