What Lived Behind My Bed in Vietnam

 

Of course the sand on my pillow came from my hair. And the sand alongside my bed? It must have been tracked in by my shoes.​

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As for the trail of sand piles inside my desk drawer—well, my sad old hand-me-down desk was probably just finally dislodging from the wall.

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None of that bothered me.

Until about two weeks later.
 

The sand inside my desk drawer had morphed and multiplied into a mess no half roll of toilet paper could clean.

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I messaged the apartment manager for help and photographed everything.

 

I packed up my laptop, water bottle, snacks, and mosquito spray, then worked from the outdoor cafe.

When I came back, the drawer was spotless. But something was off.

 

My bed—flush against the wall when I left—now faced the opposite direction, wedged between the armoire and balcony doorway.

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I zoomed in on the photos I’d taken earlier.
 

Before I could make sense of what I was seeing, I looked at the wall where my headboard had been.

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Large chunks were peeling.

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And the wall itself was moving.

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That’s when I knew.

The sand on my pillow was not from my hair.

The sand on the floor was not from my shoes.

And that sad old hand-me-down desk—the very one I am working on right now, in Da Nang, Vietnam—was not dislodging from the wall.

 

It was being eaten.

 

By hundreds. Maybe millions. Of termites.
 

My first thoughts came fast, in no particular order:

 

• They'd laid eggs in my scalp
   

• My laptop was infested, and they'd crawl out while I typed

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• My passport would be ruined and the police would haul me off to jail because I had no proof this was my home.

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And those maggot-looking, slimy things were under my mattress, chewing through it while I slept.