ANTS

Today I thought of you and our trip to Jersey Shore. Do you remember that day? It was August, early evening, and the heat was unbearable. I wanted to drive straight through, but you insisted we stop at a gas station so you could grab a news paper and insulate the remainder of your legs. I said OK and quickly wrenched the wheel. But we were too late. The store was out of papers, so you were forced to buy a map of New Jersey, which was old and reacted less than favorably with your skin. Do you remember? You started to sweat, and by the time we reached the shoreline half of Princeton proper inked across your legs. You laughed and laughed. Remember? You must. Or maybe not. Maybe you’ve forgotten. But I haven’t. I still remember everything.

I remember water, of course — as well as sunlight and sand. But I also remember clouds. I remember a great fleet of ethereal ships anchored miles above the shore. I remember towering masts, and endless rigging. And I remember a thousand frantic bodies trapped inside the sails. I remember the scream of their voices — the pitch of their wings — as they crashed against the sky. And I remember other birds as well. I remember a flock of dark bodies locked inside your skin. I remember how they soared ceaselessly, soundlessly toward the sanctuary of your throat. And I remember forming some correlation between bodies locked in sky and bodies locked in skin. And I remember loosing this correlation because of ants. Thousands of them. All marching over hot stone and boiling sand for the chance to touch your skin. I remember you screamed, and then you were on your feet, laughing as you hurled grit and curses in their direction. And I remember, from where I lay, for one brief moment, all those birds came together and I lost the lines between sand, sky, and skin.

It’s mid July now and the weather has become unbearable again. Outside, ants have taken over the city. For several months they’ve invaded homes and businesses, scavenging cracks and crevices for tiny bits of food. I’m holed up in my office, watching them crawl across the floor. I say office, only it’s not an office. It’s a bedroom with an area cleared for a desk and chair. Both of which are heavy and made of steel, like the ones teachers used when we were young. Do you remember how I always talked about going back to school and becoming a teacher, just so I could own a sturdy desk and chair? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’ve forgotten. Regardless, I never became a teacher. But I did acquire a teacher’s desk, purchased from a second-hand store not far from where I work. That was two years ago, come August. Which makes it three years since our trip to the Atlantic shore.

It’s frightening how much can change in a year, much less three. Here I am, living on the other coast, sitting at the desk I’ve always wanted, writing you a letter I’ll never send. I should be revising the piece for next week’s circulation. I should be writing something with an intended audience in mind. Which reminds me: I’m a writer now…sort of. I have a small column in a modest weekly paper, which involves my experiences working over-night at a copy center across town. It pays little, and offers even less by way of recognition. But I don’t mind. The pieces write themselves and the extra pay keeps me in caffeine and cigarettes. You were right, by the way — I’ll never bring myself to quit.

It’s funny, these ants. Nowadays I allow them free reign of my life and everything which that entails. Even now, as I write, a procession is scaling the gray cliffs of my desk and marching, unmolested, across the breadth of its pale yellow surface. One by one, they ascend the underbelly of the computer tower and disappear into the wires and circuits inside. That’s where live: in the hardware. Inviolable. Invulnerable. Exonerated by me, and safe from the outside world. But it didn’t used to be this way. I wasn’t always so amiable when it came to ants.

For a long time I felt compelled to kill them on sight. I was a dedicated exterminator of each and every one–using whatever means necessary to accomplish the task. I suppose that sounds morbid, like I stalked them with binoculars and a tiny flame thrower. And I guess, for a while, I wasn’t far off. But at first I just flicked them away, hoping they’d get the hint and leave me alone. But they didn’t; they wouldn’t leave me alone. So I began crushing them with my thumb. For weeks I tracked and pulverized every ant, grinding guts and limbs into the floor. I must’ve killed hundreds. But it wasn’t enough. There were always more; always others to take their place. And that’s when I decided they should suffer–that’s when I decided chemicals were the only way. For months I implemented every poison I could find – powder, aerosol, liquid, spray. But it was no good. No chemical would kill them. Not really. Not for good. And then one day, while I was sitting at my desk, I watched a solitary ant drag food across my desk and realized I’d been wrong. Ants were an integral. Important. Necessary. Ants mend cracks; tend crevices. Ants validate a world I can not see.

Since then I’ve been spending more time away from my desk. Some days I’ll sit on the porch and watch birds dip and flutter through leaves until their silhouettes fade with the setting sun. And some times I’ll walk around the neighborhood, stopping at a wooded park not far from where I live. There are always ants there, but never many. Often I’ll sit beneath a tree and watched them scale the trunk. Sometimes they make it to the leaves, where they mock my pact with gravity.

Yesterday, while lying in the park, I was struck by the notion of an afternoon outside the city. I don’t know where I’d go exactly. West maybe. Maybe to the coast. I could stop at a convenient store and buy a map. And then keep driving. Just follow the highway. Past bluffs and rivers. Drive until the air turned thick with salt and seagulls. And then I could stop. Abandon the car. Follow the seagull’s screams. Just keep walking. My eyes and ears pitched to the sky. Walk past restaurants, shops, parlors. Walk until I reach the sand and rock and water of the north Pacific shore.

I could find a secluded spot. Remove my shirt. Let the sun warm my neck and shoulders. I could loose myself in the surf, the seagulls, the laughing children. I could stay all afternoon…or even longer. I could while away the hours till sunset, timing my breath to breaking waves, thinking nothing, doing nothing; just being me, as I wait for the wind to die, the clouds to fade, and the ants to crawl my way.