Julie Twohig

2007 was the year I began eating ants. And turned 50.

It was the year my daughter clocked in at precisely half my age.

A silent witness to faded glamour, 2007 knows intimately the ravages of time, like the echoes of British spendour in Bombay, now sinking into ruin. Like my newly slackened cheeks, once adorned with succulent flesh.

I stand at the portal, where to my left, the blurred silhouette of a youthful self and to my right, the blueprint of the encroaching crone. Aware that time leaves us for dead.

The Year That Was saw me buy into an unpopular suburb, attempt to juxtapose the prosaic with a dash of bohemian chic and laugh til my belly ached in the southern mountains of India.

At 50, in 2007, with failing eyesight, I stuffed organic dried figs into my mouth, oblivious at first to the dozen ants already feasting on the luscious fruit. Bittersweet, with a sting.

About The Year That Was: This quirky offering came equal first in the Victorian Writer’s short short story competition The Year That Was and was published in their December 2007 edition as one of their Little Gems.