They show up in the kitchen each May, here and there if the counter is spotless but in swarms around food, any amount any kind, even orts. Ah, you’re thinking, a typo in the title: she means ants. But only ants of a certain size qualify for four letters, and these teeny-tinies don’t make the grade. So I call them nts. My wife smooshes them but I don’t—not unless the swarm is massive and they all scurry in different directions and I just can’t deal. Just can’t deal: what a cheap excuse. What if these nts are sentient, recognize each other, give off signals to oncoming nts? “I’m headed this way, so you go that way.” “Works for me. How are the kids?” I just see standard-issue nts, but what does the moon see when it looks at me? What does a comet see when it looks at the moon? “It’s nothing—another one of those dime-a-dozen critters. Ignore or obliterate, your choice.” That’s what you think, Ms. Comet. You haven’t watched the nts make a perfect circle around the dish of honey your wife left to drown them but for which they’re too smart, and too alive, each doing its odd dance, one toe into the honey then quickly out. Nothings don’t act like that. Nothings don’t know the ancient conflict of food vs. life and en masse choose life itself because it’s everything, the whole bloody splendid universe. If you’ve been smooshed one too many times—enough to have forgotten that splendor—ask the nts: they’re more than happy to remind you.
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John Janelle Backman (she/her) writes about gender identity, ancient spirituality, the everyday strangeness of karma, cats, and whatever else comes to mind. Janelle’s work has appeared in The Citron Review, Catapult, the tiny journal, HerStry, and Amethyst Review, among other places. Her essays have made several contest shortlists and earned a few Pushcart nominations. Find her at www.backmanwriter.com.
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image: “How to Cook a Loved One ” by Qianqian Liu is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago. She received her BFA from the University of Minnesota and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Qianqian is a three-time recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant. She received the Dean’s Scholarship, the Incentive Scholarship, and the Graduate Dean Professional Development Award from SAIC. Qianqian is interested in temporalities and divergent becomings. Her work delves into the poetics of the overlooked and the inexplicable through humorous gestures that celebrate the intricacies of the mundane, the periphery, and the failed. Qianqian is a Visiting Professor at the Columbus College of Art & Design. Her book, “How to Make Imaginary Friends by Territorialization and Deterritorialization” (2024), is part of the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection.
Rejection Letters 