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Introducing Litro Shorts: a visual series pairing selected short fiction with short cinematic teasers.
Our second pilot is inspired by “How to Love a Millipede” — a strange, quiet story about spectacle, attention and the discomfort of being seen too closely.
Milicent sips ketchup through a straw while the rest of us pig out on McGriddles and Hotcakes. Her condition makes it difficult to eat. Thing is, her head is covered with live butterflies. Always. Mourning cloaks and pearl crescents (I looked them up) and who knows what else. From the neck up she’s two inches deep in wings.
“That beating has turned Milicent into an artwork.” Sal says. “Kinetic.”
Yeah, everyone loves to look at her now. The place is full of gawkers with Minute Maids.
When Milicent started acting class she had pustules, baggy clothes, and she smelled of dirty socks. She read the part of Ophelia in an old T, with track pants pooling on her worn sneakers, while Ms Grace, our coach, bit her lip and we nearly pissed ourselves in the back row. Dolleen said, “I saw bug in her ear in the bathrooms yesterday, I swear.”
“What bug?” I asked.
“Dunno. A worm or something. In her fucking ear.”
We started calling her Millie the Millipede after that. Made her cry.
But she transformed so gradually that weren’t surprised when she turned up with a butterfly kisser. She’d been going around in a cloud of rose perfume for months, so …. “Is that you?” we asked. She brushed the insects aside for a second; we had a glimpse of eyelid. Then she disappeared in the head swarm.
Now she gets all the best parts. “Romeo, Romeo,” she says, a stream of azures and viceroys coming out of her mouth. Audiences give ovations, weeping like high pressure fountains. They’ve never seen anything like it. She plays Amelia Earheart, and we’re blasted into the stars. Finally, it’s my turn with her. I feel masses of insect feet walking across my naked gut. And I like it.
