BOTFLY

by Jody Brooks

They took a lush vacation to the rainforests of Belize—days spent deep inside crystalized caves where they marveled at children’s skeletons, sacrificed to end ancient drought. They waded into pools beneath cave openings dripping with vines and slogged through dark water up to their chins. They squeezed their wet bodies through slits between slick boulders and entered the hush of stalactite cathedrals. In the evenings, they ate stew chicken and citrus pork, spiced and cooked underground. At night, they had sex in a treehouse, on a swinging bed draped in mosquito netting. Each time the bed moved, the net opened wider, an inviting gap for insects.  They lay there with sticky thighs, listening to the deep, throaty sound of howler monkeys, tiny bodies roaring like thunder.

When they returned home, telling stories over friends and wine, she felt a tiny bump under her skin, a small bump, most likely nothing, and so she went about her days as usual. But, inside her, a small life in its fleshy bowl twitched awake, a bloated sac warmed inside her body. She didn't notice at first, this cradling parasite boring inside.

On the day she felt a squirmy flutter, she recoiled. It had to go, this unwelcome guest. They talked about how to do it—a pill, a syringe—and settled on asphyxiation. She asked her husband to slather it with petroleum jelly, to cut off its only source of air, and they watched it sputter. She downed two shots of rum and sat on the bed, waiting, while he disinfected tweezers and prepared to pull the fat body from its fleshy home.

Jody Brookslives and works in Atlanta, GA. Her work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Hobart, AQR, The Florida Review, New Flash Fiction, The South Dakota Review, The Southampton Review, and Denver Quarterly, among others. You can find her at https://jodybrooks.com/