text: Nobody ever listens to me. Which is weird, considering I work in a call centre, spending my days on the phone, doing nothing else than talking to people. My new friends listen. And they care. They never leave me. They go wherever I go. I saw them for the first time on a chilly autumn morning, smoking my breakfast cigarette, sitting on the windowsill of my apartment. They were dancing under the lantern light. They moved in circles around the lamp hanging on a wire across the street. They circled the light, disappeared shortly in the darkness that surrounded it, swung back hastily, as if they were trying to soak in its warmth. Like a coven of small witches flying on broomsticks around the moon. What would happen to them if they stayed away from the lamp light for too long? Probably, they would freeze to death, fall on the concrete ground underneath and rot away. I felt sympathy for those little creatures. One morning, I decided to turn on the lights in my apartment and open the windows. I think they understood my intention. One after another, they swarmed away from the lantern out in the cold and into my warm apartment. Their deep, sonorous buzzing filled my room, and soon, my ceiling was dotted with those insects. They looked like wasps, they were black though, shimmering in a metallic glance, and bigger. I had never seen this kind around here before. They flew around my head and observed me through their big, red eyes, hanged in the air in front of my face, as if they were trying to greet this big hairy creature that let them in so willingly. I left one single window open and went to work. When I got home, they were usually gone. From then on, and every morning that followed, I opened my windows wide open and let the black wasps in. They knew me after a few days. Sometimes, they tapped with bulky heads against the windowpanes when they knew the hour had come when I normally was waking up. And so, every morning, I opened the windows, and they swarmed in. Then, I started talking to them. Nothing spectacular. Asked them how their day was while I smoked my cigarette. Their answer was the deep buzzing all around my head and ears. I felt as if they understood... or listened, at least. And answered in the only way they could. Winter was on its way. The mornings got colder. A light blanket of frost was visible on the car roofs in my street. My wasps chose to stay inside my apartment for the whole day. I left them fruits and old meats on the table, and when I came home, the food was gone, but they were there, waiting for me. I asked them how their day had been and told them about mine. They listened to my stories and jokes, their buzzing made me fall asleep. It became hard to leave without them in the mornings. I missed them during my shifts. Their buzzing echoed in my ears, I just wanted to be near them, listening to them and them listening to me. So, I started to put them under my shirt before I left the house. I felt their countless legs scuttling over my stomach and my back, their chitin armoured bodies pressed against mine when I moved. I kept them warm, and they accompanied me. People gave me strange looks. They thought I was the one buzzing. But it was them, my wasps. One evening, standing in front of my bathroom mirror, I discovered dried blood on my back. I stepped closer to the mirror, turning my head as far as I could to see the reflection of my back. My wasps had begun to dig little holes with their mandibles. The holes were all over my back. Sometimes, I saw a familiar bulky head with the antennae and the big red eyes peeping out of one of them. From time to time, when I lie awake in my bed, I look at her pictures on my phone. Even after all those months, I miss her. Though I know, I only miss the illusion of her. She never listened nor cared. I should delete the pictures, probably, but I can’t make myself do it. I check her social media regularly. She blocked me everywhere. Those pictures, the only thing left of her. Nothing new to see, no new wrinkle to discover in her smile, no words spoken out of her mouth that I did not hear already, nothing left to wait for in anticipation. I need to eat much more now. Drink a lot. To make up for the blood I lose. The wasps are comfortable in those holes. It itches terribly on some days, but they are beginning to heal. The edges build fine crusts of dried blood and dead, yellow tissue. The wasps crawl in and out. Countless holes, countless homes, all over my back. They feel safe in there, and I bring them with me wherever I go. They listen to me. Every evening, I lie on my stomach and talk to them about God and the world and what bothers me and what not, their heads all turned to mine, the antennae pointing in my direction, peering out of their holes. They are content, I feel it. I am their nest now. I am happy.