On Them As Individuals

My kitchen.  It happens every year.  First there are a few scouts.  Then a line is established.  One scout has found something worth sacking and bringing back to the nest.  Communication lines have been established.  Orders have been given.  The pace has been established.  There is a basket with bread goods in it.  Go!

So, I kill them.  I look for something to spray.  I look for something to wipe them away with.  Wherever I find them I kill them.  I utter things about how this is “my space.”  I warn them to “tell command control to find another house.”  I take the basket full of dry goods and put it out on the porch.  I slam it down and ants scurry.  I stomp a few for good measure on the way back in. 

Later I’m over at the school gymnasium.  I’m on the stair master and, this being Saturday, rather than my normal weekday routine, there are children everywhere.   Some of them are playing badminton.  On the other side kids are running sprints after completing their batting practice.  I’m perhaps thirty feet away from them and I am not focusing on them as individuals, rather they are a mass of activity that swarms beneath me. 

Suddenly, someone calls and all the children stop what they are doing.  Some quickly and some slowly they all fall into line and begin to make their way to the exit below me.  And in a manner most ghoulish, they all suddenly seem to look like so many ants.  The residue of the morning’s murder is still unresolved in my near-term memory store.  I consider how easy it is to kill things from afar, when you can’t see any of them, when they all seem to be operating by a logic you can’t understand. 

Saturday 5/26/18