An Ant in the Grass

I'm lying on my stomach in the grass in the middle of the day. It's warm outside and it feels good to be stretched out here in my backyard like this. My wife is mad at me right now. I would be upset about it, but I've gotten desensitized to her anger. It's a pretty constant thing, especially since she found out she was pregnant about a month ago. I guess she doesn't really want to be a mother yet. I don't think she wants to be a wife either, but she thought she did until after we'd been married a year. But maybe it's not that she doesn't want to be a wife; maybe it's more that she doesn't want to be my wife. I think that's probably closer to the truth.

Sometimes I think things will get better once the baby comes. Maybe we'll bond over taking care of another human being that's a part of both of us. But probably it will just make matters worse. Probably it will make us both feel more claustrophobic and sick of each other. Yeah, I imagine I'll be divorced before too long. That sucks because I'm still in love with her...at least I think I am. Then again, there are times like these when I just want to avoid her for as long as possible.

I hear her open the sliding glass door on the porch. I don't look, but I can feel her glaring at me.

"Hey!" she yells. "You need to get in here and pick up your damn clothes you left scattered all over the living room."

I don't respond at all. It's too comfortable stretched out here on the grass to be worried about stuff she's talking about. She stands out there waiting on me for a couple of minutes and then yells again.

"You're an asshole, you know that? I can't believe I married such an asshole!" She goes back in and slams the door shut. I figure I'll go in and try to make up with her in a little while, but right now I don't feel like it.

I haven't lain out here on the grass like this since I was a little kid probably. The grass is nice and cool on my belly and the sun is warm on my back. I let my eyes wander across the yard and spy an ant. It's just a single ant crawling through the dirt under the grass of my lawn. I watch it crawling and think about what the world must look like from its perspective. My mind wanders. It seems a lot simpler to think about that ant than the business at hand.

Maybe that ant thinks I'm a storm cloud blown in by a weather system that only ants can perceive. Maybe there are ant weather-men dedicating their lives to predicting the movements of we unpredictable humans. They have a good idea when one is just passing through or if one is going to take it upon himself to stomp a hole right in the middle of the bed they spent thousands and thousands of ant-hours creating.

Then again, maybe it's not like that at all. Maybe ants are more the superstitious type. Maybe they think we're gods passing through their world portending doom or boon, probably more the former than the latter. Maybe they're building monuments to us and making sacrifices, praying for our favor, hoping we'll spare them their pitiful lives so many of us snuff out so carelessly. Their efforts are in vain of course. We humans are completely oblivious to these ants' efforts to appease us. Frankly, we find the very concept ridiculous. The ants would be better served spending their energy doing typical ant things: building, mating, or eating instead of serving indifferent gods.

As the ant crawls under a blade of grass and I lose sight of it, it occurs to me that I'm probably a bit like those ants at this moment; spending my energy pondering how ants perceive humans instead of focusing on improving my existence in some way. But maybe my current interest in this lone ant is improving my existence in some way that I can't quite understand. Maybe if I study it awhile longer, I will understand how. But then again, maybe I'm still just too comfortable lying out here in the sun and unwilling to face my wife's wrath.

The ant reappears on the other side of a blade of grass and I pull myself forward a few feet to see it better. Perhaps the ant perceives my yard as a tropical jungle. Maybe he's an adolescent venturing out into the world beyond his bed for the first time in his life. He's feeling bold, independent, and courageous. He's living his ant-life to the fullest and is poised for adventure.

It occurs to me that I could provide some adventure. I could bring a mighty wind-storm with a single hard exhalation and send him flying several ant-miles through the jungle. I could scrape out a little pit for him to fall into and watch him struggle to emerge from it, or I could bury him alive with a pinch of dirt and watch him test his might to dig himself free.

The ant scurries along, unmindful of my contemplations of his fate and I decide to leave him be. He'll find enough adventure without my concoctions. I lose track of time as my eyes follow him along his journey. I am envious of this insect who is free to roam where he wishes without the responsibilities of a higher life form such as myself.

At some point, I realize that my wife has stepped out on the porch again and that she's been watching me for some time. Reluctantly, I force my eyes to leave my friend, the ant, and turn towards her.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Watching an ant," I tell her.

Her expression is slightly amused and slightly angry still. She's always thought I was a little off-kilter, but it's not a quality she entirely dislikes in me.

"You're a moron!" she declares matter of factly. But the anger is gone from her voice now. "Please come in and pick up your clothes and wash the dishes you left in the sink for me too. I'm not your maid, you know?"

She caught a little of the fury again in that last line, but still, it's nothing serious. I know that if I step inside now that it's likely I won't be picking up clothes or cleaning for a while. We'll be adding more clothes to the floor and going to the bedroom to make up. I know how this works. We've repeated the scene many times.

The image of the queen-ant mating with a mass of workers plants itself in my mind. Doesn't she sting them to death when they've done their manly duty? I think she does. I should look it up to be sure.

I turn over on my back and see a clear blue sky above me. Maybe I am an ant to something up there. Maybe there's some thing lying in its yard right now just observing me for no productive reason. Maybe it could pinch me to nothing between its thumb and fore-finger with hardly a conscious thought.

"Are you coming in?" she calls. She's almost begging now. But I don't budge. I just keep lying on my back and staring at the sky. From the corner of my eye, I can see her standing on the porch with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot just the slightest bit against the concrete. She's more anxious than angry now. I think about getting in my car and embarking on some great adventure into the unknown just like my friend, the ant.

Then I jerk my leg in pain and look down at my calf, expecting to see the fingers of some monolithic giant. But instead, there is the ant bearing down on my skin with its tiny mandibles. I leap up and wipe him away, sorry to hurt him in spite of the pain he's caused me. I hope I haven't killed it.

I feel my pocket for car keys and for a moment I'm torn: The road or my wife? But it's a decision I've really already made. I walk past her glaring face to my car, ignoring her plaintive questions of my intentions. I climb in, place the key into the ignition, and pull out on the highway. In my rearview mirror, I see her chasing after me, screaming my name. She is hysterical. I wonder how she knows I'm not just going to the store and coming back. But she always did have a way of reading my mind. It upsets me to see her in such a state, but I can't be moved now. The world is waiting for me. I just hope no giant unseen force will decide on a whim to thump me away before I finally find my destiny.

I look behind me one final time and see her standing at the edge of the driveway, hunched over with her hands on her knees. She lifts her head and screams at me. Her face is a desolate mask of tear-stained fury.

She's too far away to hear now, but I can read her lips. "You selfish son of a bitch!" is what she's saying. I think it's probably true, but I'm glad I won't have to hear her calling me names ever again. For a moment, tears well in my eyes, but I bite them back and focus on the road in front of me. My calf is itching where the ant bit me, but it's a good itch. I turn the radio up and smile and don't even bother to scratch it.