THE ANTS
*Previously published in The Pink Chameleon, Issue # 6, July 2005.
THE ANTS
By
Keith Laufenberg
-1-
THE INVASION
When they came to the Valley of the Ants, an ant said: 'Go into your dwellings, ants, lest Solomon and his warriors should crush you.' The Koran.
Betty Ross looked at her husband and could not fathom his unbridled anger, as he glared at the mass of small ants scurrying over the cupboards and kitchen table. They had gotten onto the left over dinner plates and then inside the cupboard, where the sugar container, a supposedly insect-proof Tupperware bowl had been totally infiltrated by the small red balls of fury.
'Good Gawd Betty, do you believe this, the lil' devils are everywhere. I'm gonna make this my first priority, to kill these bastards!' Stephen Ross, an aerospace engineer at nearby Lockheed Martin, in Marietta, shook his head sadly. They had just moved into a new house in the country and he had given no thought to the insect population, until now.
'Well Stephen I'm sure there's no need to kill them.'
'Whaaaaa....aat? Oh, right, well, ain't that just like you. You don't think there's any need to kill these bastards. Are you crazy Bet'? Look?' Ross spread his hands out, palms up, then moved them furiously back and forth around the room, signifying that there were ants everywhere. He walked to his large kitchen table, a solid mahogany beauty that had been a wedding present, and slammed his open palm down upon it, again and again, turning his hand over after every slap and then wiping the results onto has pants-leg, before continuing his one-handed assault. He only stopped when his wife walked over and grabbed his forearm. She smiled at him and said, softly:
'Honey why don't you take a shower? I'll get rid of the ants for you.'
Ross glared at his wife and then at the innumerable ants spread throughout the kitchen and dining room, then shrugged his shoulders, seemingly calming down, but only on the surface.
'Fine, what the hell, it's only midnight and I ain't gotta get up till six inna morning.' He stormed towards his bathroom, warily eying the ants, which seemed to be everywhere, now. He knew that no one could get rid of the little buggers, much less his wife of less than a year, but, as he stepped into the shower he smiled smugly; this would finally teach her something, as she was always complaining about all the pollution and how it, and progress, were so dangerous. She was against nuclear power and had history, such as the near meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, to solidify her 'nature-first' philosophy, and her lectures on the environment drove him crazy.
Stephen Ross stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist, hurrying out of the bathroom and into the dining room, where his wide smile soon faded, when he looked around the room, which was devoid of even a single ant. It was as if someone had taken a vacuum cleaner and sucked them all away, but, as he searched for one, he could plainly see that there was no such household appliance in the room.
-2-
THE SECRET
God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.
Robert Browning, Saul. St. vi.
Betty Ross sprinkled the water onto the flowers and smiled, as several bees flitted
about, pollinating first one than the other of the white and red roses. She nodded at her neighbor, as the woman approached her, eying the bees warily.
'Oh hello, Missus O'Brien.'
'Oh, call me Emily, please Betty?'
'Well, alright then, Emily.'
'God! How can you stand these bees? Oh my!' Emily O'Brien put her hands above her head and began fluttering them noiselessly, flailing in exasperation as several bees, sensing her fear and frustration, began swarming around her.
'Oh, Emily, please, just stand still and forget about them and then they'll leave you alone.'
Emily O'Brien gasped and paled noticeably.
'Stand still? God, how can I? They're so noisy. Why, I'd be stung for sure?'
Betty Ross shrugged her shoulders and set her water-pail on the ground.
'Well, won't you come inside for some breakfast then?'
'Well, maybe just for some coffee.'
'Alright then.' Ross walked her neighbor to the back porch of her large home, which sat on
two acres of relatively undeveloped land, out in Cherokee County.
As she motioned her neighbor to a table on the back porch, Betty Ross walked into her kitchen and grabbed a pot of coffee from her stove. She brought it to the table, along with two porcelain cups and poured one hall-full of the dark liquid, then nodded towards the empty
cup sitting in front of her neighbor, and said:
'Say when?' As she poured, the other woman smiled and cut her off when the cup was almost to the top, saying:
'I take it black.'
As they sat sipping their java, Emily O'Brien smiled.
'Oh, you do make a good cup of coffee, Betty.'
'Why thank you Emily.'
'Oh, it's so beautiful out here, isn't it?'
'Yes-yes it certainly is and I hope it stays that way.'
Emily O'Brien smiled languidly at this statement and rasped:
'Oh, I know what you mean. We do need to keep the area as private as we can.'
Betty Ross sipped at her mocha and smiled imperceptibly when Emily O'Brien said:
'If it wasn't for these damn insects and bugs it would be paradise out here, you know?'
'Well, they were here before we were, you know!'
Emily O'Brien smiled at her neighbor and stared out the screened-in porch. She had ascertained from her husband, who worked with Stephen Ross at Lockheed Martin, that Betty Ross was part Cherokee Indian, which she had considered a romantic idea at the time, but now she wondered if the woman weren't just a little too strange for her taste. She was about to light a cigarette when Betty Ross quickly interjected:
'Oh, I wish you wouldn't, please.'
'Oh, what? My cigarette?'
'Yes, and thank you for not smoking.'
'O'Brien kept the cigarette between her second and third fingers but didn't light it, instead crossing her legs and leaning towards her neighbor to lower her voice, as if someone would hear them.
'Of course dear. I won't smoke if it bothers you. Oh Betty, by the way, could you please let me in on your secret?'
'My secret?'
Emily O'Brien rolled the cigarette in her fingers aimlessly and leaned closer to Betty Ross, as if they were discussing a conspiracy that reached into the highest levels of the government.
'Oh come now Betty, don't be coy with me, please. Just tell me what brand of poison you used to get rid of those pesky ants. They're all over my house. Bob says it must be some sort of a secret Indian herb that you use?'
Betty Ross smiled languidly at her neighbor and shook her head.
'Well Emily you could say that that is what it is, but it's not a herb and it's really not much of a secret, not among the Cherokees anyway.'
'Oh? Oh, you're, you're part Cherokee then?'
'Yes, my mother is an Anidjiskwa.'
'An an'nadish'.., I thought you said she was ah-um-er-um-ah, a Cherokee, Betty?'
'Yes, she is, she's a full-blooded Cherokee and a member of the Anidjiskwa. It is the Bird Clan. My ancestors were members of the Raven Clan, a clan that is now called the Bird Clan. She has taught me many things, only one of which is that we must live in harmony with all creatures and if you treat the ants in your house as you would treat human beings who were guests in your home they will honor your wishes.'
Emily O'Brien's mouth dropped open, as her eyes magnified and she stuttered:
'Wha....what? But what poison do you use? That's all I wanna know?'
'Ah, but I don't use poison Emily; I use love.'
Emily O'Brien's brows furrowed together in serious consternation.
'Wha...what? You can't be serious? Love? You mean you love the ants?'
Betty Ross smiled laconically and sipped her coffee.
'Yes, I guess you could say that, although respect might be a better word.'
'Love? Respect? Bu... .bu. . but they're only ants. Ants, insects, for Gawdsakes.'
'They are living beings. Emily.'
Emily O'Brien stood up uneasily. She felt she was talking to a crazy woman; either that or a witch. She had just seen a movie about witches and Emily O'Brien, whose I.Q. was on the par of a baloney sandwich, believed whatever she saw on the big screen, especially if there were any big-name stars in the picture. She bid her neighbor a hasty farewell and hurried out the back door; lighting her cigarette almost before the screen door slapped shut and inhaling on it greedily, as she hurried towards her home and safety.
-3-
MOTHER EARTH
Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee. Old Testament. Job, XII, 8.
Betty Ross placed the plastic baggie inside her apron pocket, just alongside the clothespins and walked out into her backyard. It was early in the afternoon and she had a load of wet clothes to string upon her clothes-line. She stared up into the sky and saw the sun shining brightly and stopped abruptly. Suddenly, she was a little girl again and it was 1950, and she closed her eyes and saw here grandmother who was also her teacher, and this caused her to verbalize her thoughts, without her even realizing it, as she whispered:
'A ke yv ku gv, Squa ne lv nv hi Ha do, wa do. Ye ho waah, Oo n jlah nau hi. Yo, U ha lo te qa, A at nv ti.' 'Sun, my Creator, thank you. God, Maker of all things, good and great beyond all expression, here is the place of uniting.'
She stared at the sun for almost ten minutes before walking to her clothes-line and hanging up the wet clothes. She then left the empty clothes-basket and walked to the first of the mounds; it was slightly sloped and similar to what Betty knew her ancestors had copied on a much larger scale, in centuries past. She pulled the plastic baggie from her apron and spread some of its contents across the mound, closing her eyes as she did so.
'Ah, workers, I know you have been wronged by my husband, as well as so many others, but they do not understand you as I do and I am here to make things well, as I promised you last night I would and I have Ye ho waah's blessing in this. I will not forget my promises to you, as I
know you will respect mine also. I am sorry that the house I live in has destroyed some of your mounds but I will see to it that it never happens again here.' Betty Ross spread the sugar granules liberally around the mound, then stood up and moved on to the next mound, several feet away.
*********
Emily O'Brien spoke into the telephone, almost in a whisper, conspiratorially, as she exhaled a stream of toxic fumes from her nostrils and sat her burning cigarette in an ashtray, on the counter-top of her dining room table.
'Yes, yes I know Sherry but I'm telling you I saw her putting the poison on top of the ant hills and they have absolutely no ants in their house. What? Well, I'm not sure about that but I think she's some sort of a witch. Oh yes, yes. Well, it would explain a lot of things. Why, how else could she stand watering those flowers among a mass of bees and not even be afraid of getting stung? And how else could she have plants blooming practically overnight? And....and wait'll you hear this, she said she loves ants, yes-yes and worms, worms Sherry. Yes, really, she said they, the worms, can help save Mother Earth. Mother Earth, Sher', I mean weird, weird, she, she must be a witch.
Emily O'Brien stood up and walked towards her picture window, the one that afforded a splendid view of both her and her neighbor's backyards, and, as she did so, the telephone cord knocked the ashtray with her lit cigarette onto her new rug, and on top of the front page of some old newspaper, but Emily O'Brien was oblivious of it, as she chattered on and on, gossiping, her favorite pastime, since moving to the suburbs.
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