Elizabeth Wenger: THE WASP NEST • Cleaver Magazine

Flash Nonfiction by Elizabeth Wenger
THE WASP NEST

The wasps made their home on our home so that our homes were fused, a hybrid beast, and this wouldn’t do at all, wouldn’t do because there were kids running around (the kids being US!) and you couldn’t just live with violent, stinging creatures as neighbors—or, not even neighbors, but housemates. They buzzed by the backdoor, having their little wasp-y conversations, greeting us when we came home, acting like this was all fine and normal, like when winter came they would offer to shovel the walk for us, and they’d bake us cookies in fall, and they would never so much as think of turning their needled backs toward us.

How could they perch their home there? Didn’t they know the backdoor was the only door we ever really used? Every day that’s where we would go when we came home from school or work. It was always unlocked, and the few times it wasn’t, we kids would just break in through one of the kitchen windows and unlock the door again. Welcome, one and all. Welcome. Welcome. Our house is your house to enter as you please. Everyone, that is, except you dirty, stinking wasps.

I didn’t have time to be curious about them. I never stopped to ask why they built such geometric homes, or how they built them, or what told them it was time to nest. Curiosity is not a thing you grant your enemy. You lean into misunderstanding. You see only bad intentions and ill will and you return it in kind. And we did. Return it.

I was seven or so when the wasps built that nest. Over the years, there were other nests of course, but this is the one I remember. Remember because I remember its downfall. A dramatic battle it was, and how could I ever forget: my dad in his baby-blue oxford with a bottle of Raid aiming it at the nest while we kids all watched amazed at his bravery from a few feet away and oh, how we felt when we realized he had misjudged somehow the distance of safety, and when he sprayed their home, the wasps came flying out in a rage, all of them turning their stingers his way, flying under his shirt, and how he grabbed the collar, and pulled, and the buttons flew off, and his bare hairy chest and belly were exposed to the air, like Superman our dad was, just like Superman, and the wasps were everywhere enraged at this assault and they came for him, but he conquered. He screamed for us to get back in the house, it was the scream of a man fighting for the only thing more valuable than his life—the lives of his children. And we ran, but I didn’t run fast enough, and one of them got me. It stung me and it hurt. And I cursed them. Every last one. I cursed those nasty things that thought they had a right to live here.

And will I ever be sorry for those creatures? Their home eventually toppled to the asphalt of our driveway. Will I ever regret that we drove them away for fear of what they might do? I feel again that awful sting, the way I wailed in pain, the prick of their tiny swords jabbing at me in revenge for the loss of their home, but even as the memory smarts my skin again, I know my vengeance would be worse if anyone ever came for mine.

Elizabeth Wenger is a writer from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her works have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. She is the winner of the Baltimore Review Winter Prize in flash nonfiction. She was shortlisted for the Breakwater Review Fiction Prize. Elizabeth Wenger earned her MFA at Iowa State University’s program for Creative Writing and Environment. Her website is wengerwrites.com