* Author : Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

* Narrator : Summer Fletcher

* Host : Graeme Dunlop

* Audio Producer : Peter Wood

*

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PC 464: Needle Mouth is a PodCastle original.

Needle Mouth

by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

 

When Hana Samsa woke from a fevered nap one afternoon, she found that she had been transformed into an enormous mosquito. At the foot of her bed, her tiny legs thumped against an empty bottle of Becherovka; she’d pushed it there that morning after licking the last particles of bittersweet liquor from the cap. Her head pounded in the faint light of the gas lantern by the bedside, but when she raised her new insect arms to massage her temples, they wouldn’t bend. She felt quite sure that, when she had escaped Anastázie’s embrace that morning in order to retrieve the Becherovka from beneath the bed, she had been human, had used her human tongue to lap the inside of the cap, had nudged her human head back under Anastázie’s arm and rested it on her chest, had breathed with human nostrils the sunshine smell of Anastázie’s skin. Now Anastázie was gone, likely off to work at the school, and Hana had gained four extra legs and a mouth like a needle.

She was also parched. Though the events of the previous night were a blur, she knew that the last water to pass her lips was the glass before dressing for the party of Taroky and dancing and so much smoke and booze she wondered if she would ever return to an unfogged state of mind. Anastázie had worn a beautiful blue dress that moved across the floor like rippling water; as Hana had watched her pull the dress over her petticoats like a second skin, Hana poured a glass of water down her raw, red throat. As far as Hana could recall, she had drunk no water since.

Hana was able, by twitching the wings now attached to her back, to come up onto her legs, squatting on all sixes. She scurried across the wrinkled red sheets until she came to the edge. She balanced on the baseboard, preparing herself for flight. She had always longed to fly. She wondered if she would know how. As a child, she and her older brother, Gregor, used to flap their arms like wings and pretend at being seagulls darting across the Adriatic Sea. Never mind that all they knew of the sea was what their father, who had been to the seaside towns on business before the family business failed, had told them. He had once brought all three of the children a seashell, white and ridged with what looked to Hana like bone. Its edge was so sharp that when Hana ran her finger along it, she cut herself and bled.

The memory of that blood pearl welling up on her finger made Hana’s mouth ache. Beating her wings, she propelled herself into the air. At first she darted about wild as lightning strikes, but once she grew accustomed to the flap of her wings she was able to steer herself through the bedroom door and into the tiny kitchen. She landed atop the counter and examined the contents of the sink with her new antennae. She pointed her needle probe down into a glass half-filled with rancid water. The water did nothing for her. The thirst throbbed under her insect skin. She pulled away from the water and scoured the kitchen for a liquor bottle, but the counters were empty of the bottles which usually decorated them. Perhaps Anastázie had placed them in the cabinet, or perhaps she’d hidden them from Hana, as she had threatened.

As Hana sunk her needle back into the water glass, she heard the front door open. Although Hana did not know the time,