Fantasies That Felt Like Really Hard Work

Ants
By Audrey Tan

On the eve of Annie’s twenty-ninth birthday, her mother discovered an ant trail in their kitchen. Her mother, Mrs Choo, had been baking the birthday cake. It was a standard Black Forest cake—she didn’t want to take any risks. The troop of ants were crawling along the edges of the wall, forming a long, unbroken line from the laundry corner to the kitchen sink, and when Mrs Choo saw the ants, she jumped back and cried, “Ants!” Her fingertips were powdered with flour and she held her hands out in front of her, open-palmed, with her fingers curled outwards as if they were claws.

Annie shuffled out of her bedroom and said, “What, Ma?”

“Ants! So many! I think there’s an ant nest. You know, I’ve been seeing all these ants the past few weeks. Already suspected there’s a nest. Today they all want to come out at one go, is it?” Annie could hear the playful growl in her mother’s voice. It was the same tone her mother used on Raina, Annie’s seven-year-old niece, if the girl had said something sassy.

When she got to the kitchen, her mother was squatting below the sink, watching the ants. It was the longest trail of ants Annie had ever seen. Their small beady bodies looked hard and focused, advancing across the wall and down to the floor. It was the singularity of their moving—as if they had become one big creature with many legs—that gave Annie the creeps. She felt her feet tingle. Her shoulders curled up. She was glad she had not chided her mother for overreacting earlier, because her own jaw was now hanging out as she said, “Shit. What the—oh my god. Shit, balls.”

Her mother didn’t turn around. The empty oven was preheating on the kitchen counter, giving off a red glow. Beside it, there were bowls of different sizes with all sorts of instruments in them. There was a bag of flour with its top slit open, a large bowl of beaten eggs, a tub of baking soda, a can of cherries, a small bottle of sherry, and two bars of Belgium chocolate.

“All these ants! How can it be?” Her mother said, still crouching down, the green and purple veins popping on her pale feet. Clumps of flour were stuck in her hair, making it even greyer. Annie thought there was a tinge of amusement —almost amazement—in her mother’s voice.

“So how? Faster kill lah,” Annie said, hands on her waist. She stood over her mother at the sink, filled a big bowl of water, and splashed it onto the wall, then the floor. The ants on the wall came skidding down the streaks of water, their wispy legs and feelers fluttering or tearing apart. Those already on the ground were instantly knocked out by the slap of water, floating to the surface of the puddle, their bodies shining like seeds. For the first time, Annie noticed an ant’s infinity-shaped body, where the point of its abdomen and thorax touched. This revelation, and the ease with which she annihilated the ant troop, gave Annie a satisfaction.

Mrs Choo sprang up from the ground. She could never rise to her full height because of a curved spine. She watched her daughter’s indifference, the lazy tumble of the empty bowl in the sink.

“You see lah,” the older woman said. Then she didn’t know what to say next. She stared at her daughter, and the young woman stared back at her. There were dark circles under Annie’s eyes, and her thin legs were scaly and stubbly. What exactly did she mean to point out to Annie?

Annie Choo—one broken engagement, and living in her parents’ four-room flat. She would have moved into a new Build-to-Order flat last month, securing her own place just before thirty. But six months before the wedding, JJ claimed to be down with a quarter-life crisis, and took off on a one-way ticket to Patagonia. He volunteered to fully absorb their losses from the down payment, only eager to resolve all practical inconveniences, and has sent one postcard since. The card showed grey, ice-capped fjords rising from a turquoise lake. The tops of the fjords were jagged and pointy, crystal-white and austere. The sky was very blue. The colors were so sharp that Annie had to blink a few times when she stared at the landscape.

For their honeymoon, Annie and JJ had discussed watching the Northern Lights from a tent. That must be it, Annie had thought—a real destination—to witness green aurora swirls across the nightsky, as if some kind of genie were speeding about overhead, full of magic, luck, and innumerable wishes to grant, while they’d lie in their glowing tent in the snow, suddenly alive and newly in love again. Or, they could rent a caravan, driving coast-to-coast in Australia, as Annie had once seen in a documentary. They’d trundle along, so close to the waters, listening to the tides ebbing and flowing for three weeks straight. Their plans were usually like this—fantasies that felt like really hard work.

At the back of postcard from Patagonia, JJ had written: “For setting me free, I owe you.” Annie did not bother tearing it up or setting it aflame. She used it as a bookmark in a library book. A few weeks later, she would absentmindedly slip the book into the bookdrop with the card still tucked inside.

Annie watched the kitchen wall with her mother. It had aged into an ugly pee-like yellow from its original custard cream shade. Still, it seemed innocuous enough. There were no cracks or signs of an ant nest, as if the wall had sucked the remaining colony under its surface, nesting the ants within its plaster. Mrs Choo nodded to herself and said, “I must investigate.” Annie got a mop and cleaned the wet kitchen floor silently, watching the drowned ants caught in the fibrers of the mop. She rinsed and repeated.

If Annie were in her early twenties, she would have objected to her mother baking the cake, to torment her with such coddling. But now, friction felt tiring, unnecessary, juvenile. In fact, accepting parental love seemed like the mark of true adulthood. She also did not object to her mother calling it a party, and for inviting her sister’s family.

The ants returned that evening. This time, they seemed vengeful and hotheaded, swarming out in all directions. Yet, they moved with a uniformed, industrious rhythm, even as they divided into smaller trails. There were ants crawling in and out of dishes and baking tools drying on the rack, others sliding up and down the sink, and more zigzagging across the stovetop. The kitchen smelt of cake. Annie heard her mother yell.

When she found her mother, Mrs Choo was crouched over the kitchen counter with her arms forming a wall around the cake. The cake was dusted all over with chocolate shavings, and its face was rimmed with swirls of whipped cream. A bright, waxy-looking cherry sat on each swirl.

“Get them! Girl, quickly!” Mrs Choo said, not glancing up from her stance. Annie could tell her mother reveled in this recent adversary.

The next morning, Mrs Choo came back from the market with a packet of pellets. On the packaging, two red lightning strobes struck a monstrous-looking ant, and the words read: “Twice Action, Advanced Kill.” Annie was making a cup of coffee when her mother dangled the packet in front of her.

“Bait,” Mrs Choo said, eyes alight. The old woman seemed able to stand up straighter. Her cheeks were rosy, and light seemed to be winking off the sunspots on her skin.

“This will lure the ants out. They think it’s food, so they’ll carry this back to the ant nest. Hardware Store Boss said this will destroy their intestines. After a while, the poison will reach the queen. Then she won’t be able to lay more eggs. You want to wipe them out. Slowly, slowly,” said Mrs Choo. The thought of an entire digestive system snaking through an ant’s body made Annie shudder.

“Cool, Ma. Whatever makes you happy,” Annie replied.

“Oh, and of course, happy birthday Girl!” Mrs Choo said, squatting down to pour the pellets into a petri dish. A few ants came skittering along the floor tiles, doing their job of carrying home the poison.

In the evening, Ames came by with char siew and siew yoke wrapped in brown wax paper. She was in a white tunic dress, and wore a low braid swept to the side. At the door, she gave Annie a peck on the cheek. Ames always smelled like a scented candle. Something like frangipani and cardamom, or cinnamon mixed with some kind of plant.

“Happy birthday, Mei,” said Ames, and Annie sniffed. Ames took a step back, frowned and said, “Everything OK?” Before Annie could answer, Ames zipped off to the kitchen to greet their mother, then plate the food. She always moved in a whirlwind, breathless from one task after another. No one called her Amelia—the name used to make Annie think of a girl in a fluffy dress, sitting by the window, perpetually stroking a doll. So, Ames was Ames, and it sounded right—as if she were constantly poised, eyes narrowed, ready to score a target.

Ames’s husband, Karthik, was still standing in the doorway. He held out his big, soft arms, and Annie went in for a hug, feeling the stiff swell of his potbelly. Ames looked up just then, giving them a quick look from the kitchen. A balloon floated up behind Karthik’s back.

“Can’t say welcome to the club yet, but you’re close, Aunty Annie,” he said, scratching his stubble. The balloon was printed with a picture of an Old Maid. Annie laughed and stuck her middle finger at him. “Aunty Annie!” Karthik lifted a hand to his lips in mock offense. “Watch your manners,” he said, cocking his head towards Raina. The girl had one arm wrapped around his leg, and her other hand caught the balloon string. She slammed herself against Annie’s waist. Annie could barely lift her niece. The girl was tall and heavy-limbed. Annie pressed her nose to Raina’s head of curly hair. “Mmm,” she said, kissing the girl’s scalp until the girl shrieked with laughter and wiggled out, running into the flat. Annie could hear her mother rattling about the ants in the kitchen. Ames always knew what to say, even to their mother’s most banal comments: What a great idea, using bait—non-toxic and effective! Yes, ants are a very serious problem. She sounded like a radio commercial.

Karthik was jie-fu to Annie; she thought it was cute to address him formally, in Chinese, even though she called her elder sister by her first name. The first time Annie met Karthik, he was just a boy, serving the army. He showed up one Friday evening in his Smart Four, this large brown boy in green. His head was shaved like a prisoner’s, revealing the odd, boxy shape of his skull. Back then, he was tall and chunky, but in a leaner way. Patches of his uniform were caked in mud. “Sorry,” was the first thing he said to Annie when she let him in, the sweet-sour tang of his sweat and deodorant rushing at her. He stood there grinning at Annie like an old friend, and she stared at the heart-shaped curve of his ears. Her sister had mentioned his visiting just that morning—Ames liked to make big announcements that way, as a side note, as if everything she did had a way of gliding naturally into place; Annie herself never mastered this trick. Ames, just nineteen, was assured and matter-of-fact about the meeting, pre-empting their mother’s concerns just before the doorbell rang—Yes, we are young but we know what we want; yes, fried pomfret is fine; Don’t be lame, Ma, he doesn’t eat curry everyday.

It was Annie who went through the whole evening with a palpitating heart, as if she were the one on trial. She stared at him stooping to untie his boots, so fixated on the green curve of his back that reminded her of a gigantic turtle, that she forgot to offer him a stool. Later, during dinner, she watched how he hunched into his wide shoulders whenever he thought of something to say. She was embarrassed of their flat—how its narrow hall and low ceiling seemed unable to contain him.

There was a brief moment where Karthik rested his hand on Ames’s lap when their mother wasn’t watching. It made Annie go red. She had watched raunchy scenes in movies, and once even clicked on porn, seeing it all—pale buttocks and breasts, bushy genitals, bodies slapping on top on each other, the trance-like thrusting. Then, she felt her body grow hot, but the sensation fizzled quickly. The sounds and motions of sex seemed elemental yet foreign, as if it were an episode on National Geographic. But Karthik’s touch excited her. Annie watched the curve of his fingers on her sister’s thigh, as if he were holding back an impulse to squeeze her. The sweep of his hand across Ames’s skin gave Annie a rush. She saw her sister smile, like a cat being rubbed. Annie suddenly understood the carnality of bodies, the weakness imbued with pleasure. And then, she was overwhelmed with relief that her sister was the desired one, that she could be privy to Karthik’s affection but not the recipient of it, so she could go on watching, consuming this intimacy without the hassle of getting involved.

That was how Annie would go on as an adult—as a spectator of her sister’s life. It made sense to her much later, after the initial shock and hurt, that her own relationship would fall through. But as a teenager that night, Annie had dreamt about Karthik’s large, padded hands on her thighs, then working their way up her torso. She awoke suddenly, her groin sore and full, and rushed to the bathroom to urinate. Just as Annie was about to go back to bed, she stood over her sister in the other bed. Watery moonlight was seeping under the curtains, giving Ames’s milky complexion a bright and hard sheen like the surface of a pearl. Annie watched her sister’s angular face. Ames’s small, almond eyes were shut and her thin nostrils were flaring softly.

Annie felt her small nipples poking under her nightshirt. Then, she did not know why, but she stuck a hand under her sister’s blanket. Her sister’s thigh was warm and supple. Annie gave it a hard squeeze. Ames gasped and her eyelids flew open, then instantly fell back into the quiet grace of sleep. Annie darted back to her bed, separated by a small cabinet that had been pasted all over with glow-stars. She lay back down with a dizzy heart, her hands stacked on her chest, locking herself in that position till morning.

Annie would often think about that night. Years later, when Ames and Karthik left for their honeymoon, all that preoccupied Annie was her sister doing it. Those lush, bouncy hotel beds. She knew it was crazy—crazily sick, crazily naïve—that by slipping a condom into each of their bags, it would startle but somehow urge them to get it on when they were back from strolling the gardens and shrines of Kyoto. She was disappointed when Ames texted her pictures of their ryokan, where two tatami mats were spread in the middle of the bare room, a small silken pillow at the top of each mat. Annie would go on to have dalliances with men and women, hoping that with each encounter, she would be relieved of that memory. But after every physical release, a vast lonesomeness spiraled back into her, doing nothing to erase the shame and thrill of her first sexual arousal. Even after she began a relationship with JJ, that night continued to gnaw at her.

But this did not cross her mind on her twenty-ninth birthday. Now, Annie was simply tired, looking across her family at dinner. The oval ceiling light was speckled with mold spots. The roast meat glistened on a plain serving dish. Mrs Choo’s contribution was stir-fried vegetables, cai poh neng, and chicken feet and peanut soup. An ant ran across the plastic tablecloth printed with grapes. Annie could feel herself aging over the evening, the skin around her mouth pulling into lines if she said something or chewed. And were those tiny twitches on her scalp, the sensation of each strand turning white?

Even Raina, whom Annie doted on unreasonably, failed to lift her mood. The girl filled the seat at the head of the table, where Ames’s and Annie’s father once sat. The portrait of his young face gazed at them above the wooden cabinet. Weekly, Mrs Choo would light a candle for him on the mantelpiece. Raina was humming a song while picking out carrot slices from her bowl.

“Guess what Ray,” Mrs Choo turned to the girl, raising her brows. The old woman ate little rice, and the few grains in her bowl were swimming in gravy. She stirred the bowl with a porcelain spoon, and stopped.

“We have an ant nest at home,” she said in a loud whisper.

Annie frowned at her mother’s blunt cheerfulness.

“Ant nest?” said Raina with wide eyes.

“Yes, millions… Billions of ants. Hiding in the kitchen. If you eat all your vegetables, Grandma will show you how to kill them.”

“Ee-yuck!” Raina slammed her fork and spoon down and shut her eyes. Her grandmother laughed.

"Ma," Ames winced, gesturing to the table of food. Another ant scurried out, following the invisible trail of the first.

Karthik lifted the stray ant with the tip of his finger and said, "Speak of the devil." He stuck his tongue out at the insect, making sure that Raina was affronted.

"Appa, that's enough!" The child swung her legs and folded her arms. He laughed and flicked it away.

"Looks like Hardware Boss earned a quick buck," said Annie, chewing on a stem of broccoli.

"Wait, Girl. Later you see," said Mrs Choo, with her chin raised.

Ames looked around and rested her arms on the table. The long white sleeves of her dress were draped on either side like wings. She said, “Are we really spending dinner talking about ants?” She paused. “So, what's new?”

Raina’s head swayed from left to right as she said, “Ants. Anty. Aunty. Annie. Ant-nie.”

“Ants,” Annie echoed her niece. “Really, that's all there is to life.”

Everyone at the table fell silent. Even Raina, who was becoming sensitive to the moods of adults, stopped chanting. She looked at her father, then continued to pick at her food.

“I'm sorry, did I say something?” said Ames.

“No, what’s wrong,” said Annie.

“I mean, the way you said—”

“I said there's ants. Ants in our flat. And Ma's crazy about them.”

“It’s a serious problem, what,” said Mrs Choo.

“Why do you always make it sound like I’m being condescending? I was just asking a question,” Ames said, raising both hands in surrender. Her tunic sleeves rippled.  “You know what, all I did was show interest in your life, and I get served this passive-aggressive bullshit.”

Karthik scratched his chin and looked at the smiling face of Mr Choo on the wall. He had never met his father-in-law, but he was certain they’d be buddies. He put a hand on Ames’s shoulder.

Annie’s face was growing red. She said, “What? I didn’t take any offense. You’re assuming that I’m being prickly. About what? About the fact that yes—you’ve got your exhibition coming up at the National Gallery. Didn’t I just say, ‘Congratulations, I love you’? Maybe you can start taking my words as they are.”

Ames had been a practicing potter for more than a decade—she’d made it as an artist, an artist based in Singapore, a female artist based in Singapore. Annie, though equally intrigued by art, liked to tell people that she had “two left hands”, or when she was drunk: “two thumbs and eight middle fingers.” So she took a double degree in Art History and Communication Studies, but only landed freelance writing gigs since graduating.

“I’m so done walking on eggshells with you,” said Ames, raising her hands again. Raina looked under the table, checking her mother’s feet. She blushed when she remembered that sometimes, adults liked to use words they didn’t actually mean. The girl glanced at her father, and he patted his lap for her to sit on, to take refuge there. She shook her head and stared at her aunt.

Annie squinted and said, “Why do you find it hard to believe that I can be happy for you? That even though I’ve been rolling in real shit lately, I can look past myself and truly celebrate where you are? Damn it. Give me some credit lah. Your guilt about everything is just so condescending. As if I must not only be a failure, but a sensitive, bitter one. Just let me be a happy loser, OK?”

“I know. I can’t imagine—”

“Yah, of course. I never asked you to imagine being me. Thank God there’s just one of me to imagine.”

“You see? You always do this. You make it impossible.”

“For what? For you to be Mother Theresa?”

“Stop it. And I never said you were a –”

“Aiyah, happy occasion, why talk like that? Don’t let the ants spoil the day,” said Mrs Choo. Then she winked at Raina and said, “All the more we have to kill them.”

“OK Grandma,” said the girl.

Ames never said her sister was what? A failure? That the word even crossed her mind made her nervous, ashamed. She hugged her arms, wrapping herself in the sleeves of her dress.

Annie cupped the smooth white bowl and stared into it, as if seeking for inspiration. Two knobs of fat from the siew yoke sat in her bowl. Her head felt hot.

Mrs Choo went on, “Annie. So many months already. Time to move on.”

“Ma,” Ames said with gritted teeth and a vigorous shake of her head.

Annie glanced up at her sister. “Ha. Relax. I’m not that fragile.”

“OK then,” said Ames. “If this is what you want. Let’s talk about it. No more skirting around.”

“Yes – thank you!” said Annie.

And then, suddenly, neither sister knew what to say. One thing, though, made Ames open her mouth then close it again. She knew that Annie had driven to the Build-to-Order flat. Just two days ago, after Ames had dropped Raina off with their mother, she caught Annie getting into the old Toyota. Even from afar, there was something off about Annie’s expression—foggy, like she was still in a dream, but with a focus that alarmed Ames. So she tailed Annie, watching her drive along in a rage. When Annie finally exited the expressway and filtered out to Brickland Road, Ames realized what her sister was up to. Moping. Ames knew it was not so much the break-up that tormented Annie, but the fact that she had lost her new home. Ames drove on, slipping back onto the highway in a blur, suddenly angry too, burdened by the knowledge of her sister’s pain.

Karthik picked up the boiled chicken feet with two fingers, and began to chew meticulously on the soft, rubbery flesh. He had come to truly crave the food of the Choo household—he’d nibble on wolfberries sunk to the bottom of soup bowls, go for multiple helpings of bitter gourd slices stuffed with minced pork, insist on having salted vegetables whenever porridge was served. But even after all these years, he could never partake in the Choo women’s coded language.

Raina looked back and forth the adults, then hopped to the bathroom behind the kitchen. She didn’t want her grandmother to know that she had been wondering about the ants.

“Wash your hands,” Ames called out to the girl, still holding her gaze on Annie.  Then she whispered, “No one here is responsible for your feelings, alright?”

Annie said, “Keep it going.”

“Whatever’s wrong with your life – that’s on you, OK? Later, you better flush out this fucking gloom, blow some candles, and cut the damn cake.”

Annie leaned back, smiled at her elder sister, and said, “Yes. Thank you.”

Their mother blinked a few times. Karthik put his head in his hands. “Babe,” he said to Ames, and she shot him a warning look. He turned towards the balcony, feeling for the cigarette pack in his pocket.

But Raina returned, sliding into the chair beside her father. She had a funny look on her face.

Then the girl opened her palm and held it out to the adults. It was full of ants, dead and dying, their bright, black bodies overturned, feelers and legs withered and drooping. Ames screamed. There were two ants, still alive. One was crawling up Raina’s arm, and the other was sprinting across the table towards the bowl of char siew sauce. Raina’s eyes shone. Karthik said something under his breath. Mrs Choo rose, making a sound of delight and horror. Annie found herself gripping the edge of the table. She’d wanted to say something funny, congratulate her niece, perhaps. But Annie felt herself rocking backwards, and a sound escaped her throat. It was an oh, she could feel its hot, hollow sound, inside her yet faraway, as if it were her sister’s, or her mother’s, or both their voices rising from her own chest.

“Look, I found them,” said the child. “I saw the nest. They were all dying. How do you think these two made it out alive?”


Audrey Tan is working on a collection of short stories that focuses on the complexities of interpersonal relationships. She has also taught creative writing at NTU, where she is completing her MA in English. Her stories have appeared in QLRS and more.