I took a moment, on my way to work, to stare at an anthill.

Close to 11 in the AM, so my shortcut through the park should have been free from the rampaging sneakers of tireless children; chasing squirrels, undersized soccer balls, or one another. Their interchanging directions switching from one interest to the next. Pointing towards a branch. Then a duck. Then a cluster of pebbles, imagination’s very own bowl of breakfast cereal or candy.

Could have been that it was a weekend. Possible bank holiday, one of those lengthy breaks involving turkey, fireworks, or a rabbit hiding eggs in the easy to reach.

Even at that time, I had only the sunlight to go on. A timid yellow that indicated not quite the throes of summer. As for weekend, weekday; that would have required a clear understanding of what one week meant beyond a direct deposit, every two weeks.

All steps from within scuffed dress shoes felt the same. Pinch of a belt between notches. Pocket of copper sandwiches jingling, bookbag giving both shoulders a blank backrub.

Found myself remembering a perfect night with another, 3 in the AM, both of us in a lifeguard station situated on the Carolina coast. Friend of a friend who I hadn’t seen in years. Tight, red curls. Freckles. Unabashed. Only two hours after meeting, locked in the eponymous double digit, then frontwards, backwards, tongues leaving trails as a reminder, hey, come back up, or down, and find your way, once again to this one spot, and lets start over.

“What the hell kind of something got us to just this point?” she had asked, smiled at me between first and second time. Reading my thoughts and demanding I say nothing to ruin this chance encounter. “Just be lucky, Lucky,” she had said. “You’ve already been good. Now just be… chaotic.”

The rattle in my bookbag reminded me there was still no cure for memories.

As for their headaches, easy as one, two, three. Safety cap popped. Ibuprofen. Dry swallow, secretly laughing at the instructions to take orally.

Shook my head free of the wordplay, lowered my head.

Saw the anthill.

Sure, couldn’t tell you the day of the week. Barely the time of year, but I knew my schedule. Knew the walk to work so well, I knew it allowed another minute or so on either side of this event. Enough time to crouch low. Feel the pinch in my pants from that previous memory. Go down for a closer look.

The ants weren’t wasting their day. Brown hues, miniature beads. Threads. Platelets in the blood stream. Scaling the walls of a puckered monument to what lay beneath. The cries of children got me wishing for another dose, palms pressed against parched lids. A warm starburst of yellow, purple, deep breath, and when I opened my eyes,

there was a clay-colored Crock against the backdrop of a ruined anthill. Tiny, grotesque toes wriggling. I traced the leg up to short shorts, connected to a six year old torso belonging to a wide, PB and jelly grin, growling:

“I’M THE BATMAN!”

Before I could counter, the child added: “RAAAAH!”

Ran off in the direction of a branch, duck, or any of the rest.

I took a look down at the flattened sandcake.

No big loss. Reconstruction already underway. An army corp of engineers doing the hurry-scurry, marching one by one, grain by glinting grain.

Save for a single ant.

Darker hue than the rest. Perhaps a bit bigger in build. Maybe even more shine to its thorax, that lower part I seem to remember as the metasoma. A singular discrepancy, ghost walking away from it all. Moving against the melee.

Moving fast.

Fast enough to follow.

I straightened and kept my paces to a minimum. But what a minimum it was. Didn’t have to worry about keeping appearances. What should have presented as the slow shuffle of an undead creature or drunk element on this otherwise sunny day, must have come across to the living as a plain, contemplative walk.

This ant was a swift one. Segments that got me moving past the park, onto the sidewalk, into traffic.

Only one vehicle to worry about, and I didn’t pay attention.

That single car came to an inauspicious halt, just three seconds off schedule. Single blare of the horn, encounter over and done, its wheels moving on, maybe missing that green light by just as long as it took

for this ant to summit the curb, my presence adding a twist in the the day a semi-bearded cyclist.

His mustache twitched with unreasonable anger as the word ASSHOLE trailed a half-second behind from wherever he was heading.

The ant led me two blocks south of my destination, into the corner store.

Perfect timing; some enraged nobody pushing his way out of a pull. Dirty white hat, goatee, the kind of eyes that stared at computer screens with scorn and personal plans for the days ahead. His shoulder bumped mine, thinking of picking a fight. I readied myself, then saw him saunter down the street with a brown-bagged tallboy popped and at the ready.

The ant was already ahead of me, waiting at the counter.

So now I had a decision or three to make.

Automatic pilot, I asked the man behind the glass for a pint of Jack.

He spoke openly to the voice in his earpiece, undetermined language to my own, told the other end to wait a second.

Two other humans cued up behind me.

He asked if there was anything else. Anything else I needed.

The ant was still by my side. Glancing up with expectant antennae, diminutive size turning my shoe into a dusty, black beached whale.

So I asked for a pack of Reds. Added a lighter, adding two more people to the line, waiting for their turn. Counted out exact change, copper sandwiches, prompting one of them to leave the store in an audible huff.

In the time it took the counterman to count those three pennies, the ant was already ahead of me.

I left the store with said treasures, and caught up to my insect, waiting at a crosswalk intersection.

Simply resting on the curb from across the park.

And upon approach, there was nothing left of our journey. Ant at a standstill. Dead, maybe, but how would it look to the world, had I bent down and checked for a pulse?

So I sat. Next to. Side by side to.

Next. Next. Next.

Unscrewed the cap, now several minutes off schedule, though not quite late enough to raise any eyebrows. I took instruction, looked past the street, to the park. Saw a child swing from the monkey bars. Doing their best to wind, move, elevate. Try to get their legs up and around the next rung, maybe go marsupial and hang upside down, only

there was the slip of a single hand, a spectacular double back-flip before landing on a misplaced arm.

Certain I could have heard the snap, if it weren’t for a nearby fender-bender, coupled with the confused wail of first time breaking a bone, the blast of a counter man’s shotgun, stopping some heist just short of its intentions, bicycle breezing past with its mustached handler fleeing the scene, and I lit a cigarette, watched as some angry nobody, dirty white hat and goatee, scooped up the child and rushed them towards waiting parents, smoke trailing from my lips in wonder, that child’s limp legs bobbing, leading down to a pair of clay-colored Crocks, encrusted with sand and dead insects, leading me to

glance down at the ant.

Took another hit of Tennessee whiskey and asked, now some several minutes past due, so…

…what’s your version of a smile?

###

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so long and thanks for all the pish.