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The Ant Lady
by E. Amato It started simply. Plagued in the night by this feeling this crawling feeling she could no longer take, she trained herself – forced herself awake and to turn the light on and that’s when she realized - she realized – she wasn’t crazy at all – she was being crawled on – all night long – by ants. Lines of ant soldiers used her as a passageway at night. She jumped from her night bed and began flicking the ants off off off her – she was a bit angered, to be truthful, a bit put off by these ants. She knew they’d found ways inside, she’d had to battle them before, but this familiarity of her body her night body her sleep – this was more than she would stand. So, the next day, she took special care to seal up all their known entrances. She went down to the hardware store and bought a caulking gun, caulk, and boric acid. She filled the holes with the boric acid, and then she used the caulking gun to seal them up. She was sure this would be the end of it. Her baseboards all had white caulking spreading out from them now, but as long as she had sealed away the ants, she was happy. She stayed up that night, caulking gun at her side, and she watched the holes. It was a full moon. In the morning, she woke up on the floor, surprised, but then soon realized that there were no ants – no ants at all. She had done it. She and her home were safe. A few days later, when she was busy cooking her weekly stew, she noticed an ant crossing the counter. She was disturbed – disturbed, but not fazed – it was a lone ranger who’d lost its herd. She took her index finger, and came down on it, breaking its miniscule exoskeleton. She rinsed her hand and went back to cooking. In the bathroom, a couple of days after this, she found 2 or 3 ants wandering behind the toilet bowl as she cleaned. She was a little upset, but then, they could have come through the plumbing somehow. She’d call the building and have them take care of it. She took her finger, and like they were stray poppy seeds on a counter, compressed them and flicked them off. That night she dreamt of a desert, a foreign desert – the kind you see in movies with sand forever. So much sand it becomes a weapon; something you can never escape. She dreamt the way the wind ripples the ridges making patterns, inescapable patterns. The geometry turning into threat. So small to begin with, this grain of sand, yet when joined with billions of its companions, it becomes immortal. The desert was just grains of sand but it was always about to overpower those who dared to cross it. There was no sandstorm in her dream, no heat stroke. Just the pervasive feeling that the landscape might rise up at any moment, and claim its ongoing victory. In the morning, she was making her coffee when she saw it – a line of ants going right through the coffee maker. She was livid. Livid. This surely had to be from the neighbor – the guy next door whose apartment was overgrown with junk and dirt. She would see about this. There were just too many of them for her index finger, so she opened the drawer and found a little Ziploc bag, snack size. She held it open in their path and waited for them to march in, then sealed it just as they were getting confused and starting to turn around. Then she got another bag and did the same thing. She left the bags on the counter as she went next door to complain to the neighbor. He was not at home, or at least not for her. She came back and looked at the bags, uncertain of what to do. She threw them in the freezer. By the end of the week, she had a freezer shelf full of bags. She went to the store to buy more Ziploc bags. She had graduated from snack size to sandwich bags by now. She continued to fill the bags. She didn’t know where to put them, so she just began to carry them with her. She would walk around her apartment, small Ziploc bag in hand, and absent-mindedly between her fingers, she would pop pop pop each one, like the bubbles in bubble wrap. At first she didn’t even realize she was doing it, but then it became a game for her, a way of passing time. She had preferences – she did not like the tiny ones, the ones as slim as feather fronds – they did not have a good action to them. She did not like the very large ones; they were too creature-like – too animate. But there was a perfect size of ant to crunch between her fingertips. A nice medium-sized black ant made a popping sound – tiny – but she could hear it – and gave her a satisfaction. One night a friend from out of town came to visit and invited her out for a drink. It had been a long time since she’d been out, except to go to the store. She dressed carefully – though everything she owned was essentially the same. She preferred black, crisp fabrics, pants and a shirt, but still she tried to order her hair a bit, and she put on some lipstick. Red. As she went out the door, she grabbed her purse, her keys, and a few of her special bags. At the bar, her friend sat with several other people. She had not been expecting this. She steeled herself for the kind of conversation people who enjoy conversation participate in. She smiled, walked forward, and hugged her friend. She found a stool and struggled up with her purse carefully in her lap. There were a lot of people here; it was noisy. The friends of her friend all seemed dynamic and excited. She sat quietly, wishing she could just talk to her friend. Tell her friend the story of the ants and her fantastic victory over them! But her friend and her friend’s friends prattled on about fashion and drama and the wars and seemed oblivious to her. At one point her friend turned directly to her – the conversation stopped. He said, “You’ve been so quiet – tell me what’s going on with you?” Everyone looked her way – everyone in the whole bar. She was suddenly tongue-tied – how could she explain – make them interested in her journey – her journey with the ants – she she well, she laughed a dizzy little laugh – the kind she’d seen in movies and she smiled and she said, “oh, me – you know I’m the same as always.” Then she laughed again. Her friend looked at her for a while, but the rest of the conversation started up again as if she’d never been there. As if she was a hole that had been suddenly caulked over, now invisible to the universe. In retrospect, this might have been a great time to leave – make her excuses about having to get up early and go. Instead, she reached into her bag, and, nonchalantly, pulled out one of her little Ziplocs. While everyone else chatted, she silently took her thumb and forefinger and squeezed in successive bursts. Squish, squish, squish, squish. A kind of black soup began to form in the bag. The bar was dark, her movements were tiny and repetitive, but eventually, a pair of eyes came to rest on hers. A friend of her friend’s, a beautiful young dancer, watched her. He said, “Are you hiding some chocolate from us over there? Not going to share?” She looked up sharply when she realized this was directed at her. Ten eyes suddenly turned to her lap. “What is that?” her friend said. “What are you doing?” “Nothing,” she said as she tried to put away the bag quickly. It fell on the floor. The beautiful young dancer picked it up swiftly and gracefully. He looked at it before handing it back. “What is this? What is in here?” “Nothing.” She snatched at the bag. “Oh my God – is this? Is - are those ants?” “No, you don’t understand –“ “Dead ants?” “No –“ “Are you carrying around dead ants? Why would you do that?” As she was about to try to explain, as a barrage of words began rushing from her throat, too many at once to make a straight line of words – no possible sentences – one of her friend’s friends – one wearing a bow tie and looking very pleased with himself, began singing “Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant dead ant dead ant, dead ant dead ant…” in the tune of the Pink Panther theme song. An ocean liner sank inside her. She couldn’t take this. She was about to cry. She looked at her friend and then ran out to the street. She would just jump in the first taxi she saw and go home. Home. She would go home. Now. She heard her friend calling after her – heard her friend’s lovely, birdlike voice, but she could not stop hearing the laughter and the singing and she kept running until she could not hear the sounds anymore. At home, safely inside, she flung out the contents of her purse. She threw some cold water on her face. She did not know what to do next. She sat on her couch for a long time. Right in the middle of the couch, staring straight ahead. Around her, streams of ants were filing past. This was their home now. They had paths and routes. They had infrastructure. Without her constant vigilance, there would be no room left for her. She rose from the couch. Went to the freezer. She looked at the freezer full of little bags of carrion. She took one out. She placed it on the counter. The closest thing she could find was her morning mug. Her favorite coffee mug – the one that said I <3 Victoria, BC with a picture of a maple leaf. She loved that mug. It was perfect. She took the mug now, in passion, in defiance, and began to pummel the frozen bag of ants. She brought the mug down on the frozen mass on the counter over and over; she was trying to break it into a million tiny pieces. Shards of mug went flying all over the kitchen. Finally all that was left was the handle she was holding. She looked down at her ant holocaust. Her work. Her art. No one understood. She did not need them to, did she? She just needed them to leave her alone. This was work she needed to do. To defend her home from the onslaught of ants that threatened to take it over. While she sometimes felt she was losing the war, what else could she do? Her home was invaded by hostile forces. If she had to spend her life defending it, well, that was what she would do. She couldn’t let down her guard or let her vigilance lapse. If she did, she’d be infested. Surely this was not crazy. This was her right as a homeowner, as an American, as a human. She breathed a sigh of competence. She returned the ants to the freezer. She cleaned up the pieces of her favorite mug. Maybe one day she’d take another trip to Canada, take a trip and get another mug; she’d make it a quest to find the same one again. In the meantime, she would just have to do without it. Or maybe she could glue it – yes – she’d glue it back together. That would be a project. She’d go to the hardware store and ask for the best glue for the job. That would be a good thing to do. Yes. That’s what she would do next. |
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