[FICTION]

[11/24/25]

Insecticide

by Madison Ellingsworth

I know where the mosquitos are coming from: in swarms through the open studio door. One of our futile attempts at adequate ventilation, to avoid developing silicosis and various types of ceramics-related cancer. But why are the mosquitos trying to make their new home inside of the plaster molds? Cool, dry, dark—the opposite of what I assume a mosquito would like.

When I use our plastic pitchers to pour liquid clay into the molds, out of the spout holes the mosquitos fly. Many of them succeed in their great escape, fluttering around my respirator, then buzzing off to find a studio worker with a more delicious smell.

Others, unknown to me, do not succeed. They were resting in that dark dry place, taking the mosquito equivalent of a cigarette break, only to suddenly begin a long drown in the suffocating solution. A foot away, and I have no idea. I’m busy pouring and listening to teen dramas play out of my cracked cell phone.

How confusing it must be for them. Can they feel confusion? Do they understand anything enough to be confused by other things?

I imagine their plight is like to a person caught in a far-off landslide. Silent and unknown, fossilizing in real time. Wondering what went wrong.

For some of these mosquitoes, there is a glimmer of hope. An hour goes by, and I dump the excess out of the molds and into a tub. Some of these mosquitos miraculously spring out of the running liquid. They ping into me, into the studio supporting beams, into the table. They are covered in slip; draped in a little clay jacket.

And they are alive. How are they alive? Maybe they do not feel confusion, but do they feel shock? Surprise? I know I do. I watch them zoom off, relieved to not be responsible for another insecticide.

But if they are unlucky enough to have rested on the edges of the cast, then they will remain stuck after I have dumped the excess. So they’ll dry along with the clay, the plaster sucking out every molecule of liquid from their tiny exoskeleton. Torturous hours, waiting for something to happen.

It would be reasonable to assume that they die, if just from the trauma alone. But they survive inside that damp gray prison. When I peel the dried ceramic from its mold, there they are, embedded in the sides. Legs all wonky, wings turned the wrong direction, proboscis deep in the clay. Sickened, I try to peel them out. I cut away with a fettling knife, freeing a leg first, then a wing. They flap and flap. Why I help them, I can’t explain, but still I do. Just one more leg to freedom.

Before I can get to it, they tear themselves loose. The desperation takes their legs. They fly, breathing fresh air, new air. It may be sifted with chemicals and airborne organic particulates, but it doesn’t matter. I watch them meander. I wonder if I could fly like that had I just ripped off my own limb.

Despite their parasitic nature, and how wrong it feels to behave this way, I admire them. My ceramic cast is now a mutilated version of what I meant to create. I toss it into the bin and turn, knife in hand, to the next mold. I prepare myself for whatever may be drying in its depths, and I get back to work.

Madison Ellingsworth likes walking in Portland, Maine. Her work is forthcoming in an array of publications, including West Trade Review, Flash Fiction Online, and a short story anthology titled "Positivity Bias: Maine Writers, Defiantly Happy Endings." She has been nominated by Apple Valley Review for Best of the Net 2026, and is a finalist in Lucky Jefferson's 2025 Poetry and Prose Contest. More of Madison can be found at madisonellingsworth.com, and on Instagram @madisonellingsworth.