Frances Gapper

Me to the earwig who lives under the soap dish in my bathroom: ‘I love our tiny chats.’ Earwig: ‘Why so?’ 

Me: ‘Because I always learn something new.’

The earwig has completed its strength and flexibility exercises plus its dance to the rising sun. Leaving it free to explain matriphagy, which is accepted practice among certain types of earwig.

Me: ‘May I ask you a personal question?’ 

‘Fire away.’

‘Did you eat your own mother?’

‘No. She got lost returning to the nest. Someone else probably ate her. Alas!’

‘Sorry. We buried ours.’

Shock makes the earwig pinch-defence its forceps.  ‘What a waste!’ it chitters. ‘I mean’, it amends ‘what a gift to worms. Such admirable cross-species generosity. All hail! 

‘But also,’ it muses, ‘loss can be good. For instance, I flourish in your bathroom despite its sanitary exclusion of moss and dead bracken. Because your extractor fan has stopped working.’ 

Me in panic: ‘Oh dear, but the letting agent said comprehensively modernised…’ 

Is the earwig having a fit? No, laughing in a hiccupy way. It gasps: ‘Promise me you’ll never change.’

Frances Gapper’s stories have been published in four Best Microfiction anthologies and online in lit mags including Splonk, Wigleaf, New Flash Fiction Review, Gooseberry Pie, Forge and Literary Namjooning. She lives in the UK’s Black Country region with her partner and next door’s cat.

Read more from Frances:

Atlas & Alice – ‘Stepmother’
Splonk – ‘How to Adjust to Losing Your Hair’