There are over three thousand species of mosquito. One species of human. Melinda is an ancient, Australian strain of bitch. Arms piped to bone from daily swims. Thin as pincers. Venomous, morose.
Outreach programme today. A sinking ship of a secondary school. By the sweat on the receptionist’s forehead, it’s already sunk. It was meant to be Sybil giving this talk, but she is still off ill. Brought mosquitoes from the lab. In their larval stages. Water slugs. Floating, sucking. Gasps when I tell the children they spend their early days in water, feeding on the algae. Curled coils beneath the surface of standing water. Ponds, puddles, canals.
A species has mutated specifically for the London underground. They love that one. When people hid from bombs in the Blitz on platforms the mosquitoes got a taste for it, human blood. Now you’ll find a strain that has evolved just for the tube tunnels.
I really should admire Melinda, a woman in science, but I don’t.
Leaving drinks last week, she picked flaking wood off a corner from the pub table. Index finger indulging the dig. Monosyllabic conversations with other research leads. Glasses steamed due to the heat. She sat there, blinded. Flicked a finger at my beer. Don’t know how you can drink all that yeast, Courtney. My name is not Courtney, beast.
Rapid and indestructible, is what Alex says, she’s a perfect example of cockroach syndrome.
I was placed on her malaria drug resistance project by the university a year ago. A year of her ego.
Cockroaches, you have to steam them out.
C. Heaton 28.06.24
The sunflowers were dead. I threw them out.
Why?
Because they’re dead.
No Courtney, oh really?! That’s how I like them, reminds me of home.
Where everything’s dead?
I grew up in the outback. It’s all dried up. I told you this, before I moved to Sydney for university, I funded myself through med school by teaching synchronised swimming.
Then she commented on how young my skin was, AGAIN. Smooth, like the bark of a beech.
C. Heaton 3.07.2024
Melinda emailed me at 10.03pm last night. Asked me why our project is not the lead domain on the tropical diseases website. Why is it at the bottom. Why. She calls before 11pm asking why I can’t edit it immediately. Doesn’t she have necks to go bite?
Original: Malaria is becoming increasingly resistant to existing drugs. It has a high level of parasitic adaptability. It clicks into the host’s metabolism. It can keep track of time.
Edit: Melinda is becoming increasingly resistant to polite fuck off’s. She has a high level of aggressive passivity. She disregards any host’s office hours. It can’t keep track of time.
–
Melinda caught me in the lab today. She is worried about my communication style. Lacking clarity, apparently. She feels hesitant to rely on me for external comms with the university. I calmly communicated there and then that I was unaware of her grievance with the website until 10pm last night, there was little I could do. We need to be more in sync, she said. I asked her if she had a nice swim this morning and she told me to drop the attitude. Alex definitely heard this.
Synchronicity? She wants us to become like malaria. Time sensitive to the circadian rhythm. Who is the host and who is the parasite?
C. Heaton 7.07.2024
Animal facility today. Favourite place. Tracking progress of parasite injected into mice last month, need to give it a three month incubation period to develop. I know malaria can’t hatch, but if it did I imagine it a deep, seaweed green, fleshed with small arteries that bloom with the delicacy of a petal for each breath. Blood red eyes like snow white rabbits.
University office after lunch, Sybil is off again. Does she work at all? Alex says he likes my top. I tell him the mice liked it too. I sit down at my desk, next to Melinda. At least in the lab we book in different slots for the bench. She oscillates on her chair. Asks me to find her a tea strainer. I am working towards a PhD in parasitology Melinda. A fucking tea strainer?
It’s for her loose leaf tea apparently. It arrived in a Fortnum and Mason’s thank you hamper from a Woman in Science conference she attended last month. A tea strainer.
I said no to the tea strainer. I had to write up a report from the animal facility. Her face became arthritic. Swelled, immovable. Her age showed. Went to grab a coffee with Alex. Long, tall Alex. V flirty.
When we got back, she was sifting loose leaf tea through a sodden piece of kitchen roll into her mug. Those medusa curl coils pinging out of the prawn shaped clip I got her for Secret Santa. She SCREECHED at me, like a Banshee. Do you see what you have reduced me to? She shouted. You have time for coffee but not for THIS?
Your loose leaf tea Melinda? No.
Email from her this evening, HR copied in. My attitude is NOT convincing. My job is to support her and create a collegiate work environment as second in command. This is NOT the first time she has had doubts.
Hypothetical reply:
Hey hun,
The animal facility is missing a rat – I’ll let them know you’ve appeared.
HR – can we copy in Occupational Health for a wellbeing evaluation? At best the attitude of Mrs Melinda Krammer is misanthropic, at worst, psychotic.
Actual reply:
Dear Melinda,
Apologies your request for a tea strainer caused so much distress. I was unable to locate one at the time, nor were there many options for purchase available in the Warren Street area.
I really admire your work ethic and career. I am excited to continue our research together and hope we can find an equilibrium soon.
Again, sincere apologies.
C. Heaton 19.07.2024
Been better with me this week but has really been gunning for a young PhD student. Insisted that Ysra, not her, left the door to the mosquito store room open. We need to keep the storage facility where the mosquitoes are kept locked at all times to keep the temperature controlled. An immense no-no to disrupt the humidity, other projects may have active experiments ongoing too. Melinda wrote an email straight to HR, copying Ysra in. Apparently she wants her off the team. Dead and gone.
Chatted to Ysra today. Said I’m keeping a log of Melinda’s behaviour. Got this email from her this eve. Ysra D. Testimony:
I hadn’t even been with the mosquitoes today. It’s not even the correct time for them to be checked when I was supposed to have been in there and not shut the door. Melinda was in and out with Sybil all morning while we were sterilising equipment for her. Then I went upstairs to do some more admin work. Next thing I know, I receive an email that I’m not qualified to be doing this job, and she’s launching a complaint against me due to lack of duty and care in a potentially hazardous workplace. I won’t lie, how am I meant to go against this lady who gets a fuck tonne of government funding for the university every year? I know that if a room is temperature controlled, first thing you do is check it’s locked. Like, I did parasitology throughout my undergrad and masters, I’ve been in and out of rooms like that for years. Does the lab have cameras?
For reference, no cameras in lab.
C. Heaton 24.07.2024
Ysra has been let go. She’s been transferred to the University of Cardiff apparently. Backwater. I asked Melinda why Ysra left so suddenly. She shut me down, unprofessional of me to ask her. Then beckoned me into a meeting room and said she found my follow up emails to the animal facility a little on the slow side AND that she would really appreciate if I smiled more. It had been mentioned by Miles, the Principal Investigator of another project. Attitude is everything, she said.
Also, n.b. Is this workplace harassment even if it’s a woman telling you to smile more? Look into.
C. Heaton 27.07.2024
Office is too hot. Illegally hot. Melinda so thin she can’t incubate herself with warmth so no fans on. Sweat is slipping onto my laptop. There are salty drops raging down my legs. You’d think the heat would gas her out. But no. Cockroach syndrome 101, shell is thin but hard as cast iron, oven proof.
C. Heaton 2.08.2024
Caught Miles in the lab today. Apologised if my attitude hadn’t been great lately. I’m on a fucking apology world tour. I asked if he had heard about Ysra.
Well, Miles didn’t seem to know what I was talking about! Asked me how Melinda was, giving me a side eye of sympathy. Melinda’s Melinda, I told him. Then he said they basically put me with her to keep her in check, they knew I had enough character to not take her erratic behaviour. Well that’s not my job, Miles, I said.
And THEN he said, Melinda, dear SWEET Melinda, she really does hate ALL women.
SHE HATES ALL WOMEN DOES SHE NOW MILES? Great.
C. Heaton 3.08.2024
Ysra texted to say she’s leaving to Cardiff next week and I should come and visit. Bless her.
C. Heaton 4.08.2024
Some great wisdom today. Melinda is on a juice cleanse. She told me it is something I should consider if I want to have children. Is this ok for her to say, even as a woman? Again, look into. She also mentioned I was looking bloated and maybe to spend less time with mosquitoes and more with men. I think this was meant to be a joke. Amen.
Sybil needs a juice cleanse. She’s barely been in and has that scaly skin lack of nutrition gives you. I keep telling her to get some fresh air. Her skin pallor is end of life grey. It’s clear she’s obsessed with Alex, a PhD researcher on the project. She keeps insisting she should go to The Gambia with him and his team to collect more specimens as it’ll be in line with her thesis. Last I heard she was writing about malaria outbreaks in the Asian Pacific, fucktard. Alex said Melinda winked at him in the kitchen the other day. That or it’s the lazy eye she has when overtired clicking into gear.
Alex P. testimony. She winked at me in the kitchen last week (pertaining to Melinda – this would be the week commencing 29.07.24).
C. Heaton 5.08.2024
It was fucking fat Sybil.
Sybil left the door open to the mosquito store! Not Ysra. Like wtf, Alex knew too. We went for a drink after work and he said him and Sybil had been seeing each other. Casually, she’s not his usual type. He said she only remembered afterwards. BULL.
Also, he told me to lay off Sybil. Apparently, according to Syb, we use to be friends, but I’m now a bitch to her?! She’s even keeping notes on her phone to log it all. When have I been a bitch to you Sybil?! When? He said she’s even spoken to the union about it. It’s always the shit employees that unionise.
Alex P. Testimony. Sybil admitted privately to him she allowed a colleague to be fired for a misconduct she herself committed. Also has discussed a dislike towards myself, C. Heaton.
C. Heaton 8.08.2024
NEWS. Malaria parasite has lodged in the intestine of a couple of mice. Showing signs of fever. Large intestine unable to process, parasite stuck. Love science! Melinda though, weirdly not excited. Weepy and despondent. She ate a dry chicken wing today and used the bone as a tooth pick.
Spoke to Alex. Asked me not to tell anyone about the other night. Fell on his dick, woops. As he came I dabbed my tongue in his ear and said I bet Sybil can’t make you cum like that.
FUCK NO, is what he said.
I left scratches for her to find on his back.
C. Heaton 23.08.24
Complaint from another Principal Investigator today. The lab was left in an absolute state yesterday and it took the immunology team an hour to clear it up safely. Two strains of Malaria were left out on the table. Bad Sybil.
Malaria smoked her sweet apple vape after the email was delivered. She then threw it out the window, others witnessed also.
C. Heaton 27.08.2024
Alex at mine last night. Said Sybil worked out we had slept together. She was upset, hurt, felt let down. He said she was the one who left the lab in a mess the other day. I already knew, I was there. Watched her scramble out mid-meltdown. Faked a call from her landlord. It was only her name on the log book for lab times so I just left it as is. She’ll really have to lean into that burn out narrative for the union to back her now. Told Alex she seems to let her emotions proliferate. Not cut out for this work, even causal relationships. Maybe she needs to go on a hiking holiday.
Alex P. Testimony. Sybil had admitted to leaving the lab unclean and unsafe on 26.08.2024 – stress response concerning private life. Something to flag with a senior as wellbeing at risk.
C. Heaton 29.08.2024
ALEX AND MELINDA HAVE FUCKED. JAW ON FLOOR. WTF.
The beginning.
So, I sent Melinda an email, I discussed it with her before, about all the evidence I had collated on Sybil’s poor practice. Also I wanted to see Melinda’s face when she realised it was Sybs, not Ysra, who had left the mosquito store open. She blinked rapidly, lashes like the wings of a flea. Picked up her vape, spun round on her chair and walked out of the office. I think I got her. I think I got Melinda Krammer to the precipice of guilt.
Alex was pulled into a meeting with HR that afternoon. Apparently, his role also at risk due to withholding important information on the unsafe work practice of a colleague. I didn’t mean to get him in trouble but I can’t help who he fumbles about with. I told him it was to flush Sybil out. She can’t handle the pace or depth of investigation needed. I told him I was sorry.
He was SO mad. Frisked me into the disable toilet. I was a bitch. I was selfish. I told him this really was not work appropriate behaviour although I was mildly turned on (didn’t say the latter). He was raging about possibly losing out on future funding or placements because of this. Shit, but, not my fault.
Then that’s when he brought up Melinda. How he has SLEPT with her. He told me how she was falling apart. She’s at crisis point in her marriage after having an affair with a vet technician at the animal facility during Covid. They fucked in Edinburgh, actually fully fucked. Parasite conference, last year. She fell asleep halfway through LOL. Told him she was raising a daughter that was a monster. No maternal instinct for her. Blames it on the third degree tear when giving birth to her. Needed staples. Bionic cockroach.
Who else has Alex shoved his dick into?! If Melinda fell asleep and he kept going, doesn’t that constitute as rape?
He’s said so much now, I told him. I told him I won’t say anything but stay quiet. You don’t know who could speak out. So good.
But like, wtf. MELINDA. Alex.
MELINDA.
C. Heaton 2.09.2024
Sybil’s gone. She just didn’t come back in after HR spoke to them both. She’s even disabled her Instagram. Bit much.
C. Heaton 3.09.2024
Helped clear up Sybil’s desk yesterday. It’s just been sitting there. Everything sunflower themed, stationary, the lot. Alex slipped in that she loved Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’, she did an art course on it. Hence, the tacky merchandise. Forgot your still here, I said to him. He did not like that at all. Chucked it all out after asking him if he wanted a pen from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam as a keepsake.
Melinda not well, coughing like she’s suffocating. Dry and throaty.
Sweaty.
C. Heaton 6.09.2024
Lucy A. Kulwieć is a writer from London, UK. She was offered the only fully funded bursary place on GRANTA magazine’s Memoir Writing Workshop 2024. Her short stories have recently been published in Press 11:11’s inaugural Nothing Exists Alone series, seeking fresh perspectives on climate change, and The EcoTheo Review. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London and BA in English Literature from the University of East Anglia.
minor literature[s] 