#termites
The aardwolf is a small relative of the hyena and lives in East and Southern Africa. Because aardwolves eat termites and other insects, they have sticky tongues and specialized teeth. Aardwolves are nocturnal and live as monogamous pairs in underground burrows.
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They don’t tell you this much, but life will be gross sometimes and that’s okay.
It’s okay when you discover that you aren’t immune to it all, because no one else is either.
At some point you will likely have to deal with some kind of infestation like mice or bedbugs or termites or roaches or rats or ants or ladybugs or wasps. At some point you will have smelly, gross medical problems or you will have to help someone else who does. At some point there will probably be mold in your fridge and you will have to clean it up. You may encounter carpet that smells and can’t quite be cleaned the whole way. Or damp walls that grow weird fungus or black mold, and you might have to move apartments or rebuild part of your house to fix it. If you have pets or children, or if you find old people or disabled people close to you at some point in your life, or even just become old or disabled yourself, you will have to deal with cleaning up poop and urine from clothes and beds and floors and anything else. There will be vomit in your life, and clogged drains, and pet hair, and infections. You may have to learn how to get blood stains out of a sofa or a sweater or a floor. You may have to deal with dead animals. You may have to buy some rubber gloves.
These things can be disheartening. But the important thing is to remember that this is basic evidence of being alive. Alive people clean up. Alive people try again. Alive people see a mess and make it better. Alive people make order out of chaos. Alive people engage in ultimately doomed but still necessary battle against entropy. You’re alive. That’s enough. You’ve got this and you’ll be okay. I believe in you.
The best punishment gets under your skin like termites. In the middle of conversation you lose the threat because of the scratch scratch scratch of it, lingering in the back of your mind. You find yourself wandering aimlessly, and suddenly your back there, thinking about it. Your feet did the walking, and they walked you into the memory.
The best punishment lingers, it saturates, and permeates. It turns you into a sponge heavy with it, desperate to be squeezed clear, to have that liquid weight expunged from yourself.
The best punishments are the simple ones. The ones that aren’t burdened by theatre, built up to and staged in such a way to have MAXIMUM IMPACT in MINIMUM TIME. The best punishments are the old favourites.
The best punishments play on your brain, take it by the hand and lead it back to a familiar place that they’ve half forgotten. Send you to the corner. Put you over the knee. Bring you back to childhood, in that so very adult body of yours. The context is different, but the feelings come rushing back all the same.
The best punishment stays with you. It works its way under your skin until you can’t get rid of it. Until it isn’t an it to get rid of. It’s just you. You and your skin.
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