Wednesday, May 5, 2010

To Kill An Ant Slowly, Unintentionally

Sunday night I had some writing to do. While surfing, eating and touching myself, I see this ant. It looked like one I saw in the kitchen a couple days before, though I doubt it's the same one. This ant was huge, though, not like the swarm of ants I see ganging up on a piece of food to break their winter-long hibernation. This ant was big, and it was a long wolf, looking for ... well, I'm guessing food.

It searched for it on my laptop, and I jerked back like a little bitch when I saw this monstrouns thing glide along my pad. But after the shock wore off, I let it be. There was only one of it, there's no food around, I figure it's going to leave my sight soon, and I'm a pacifist.

But it kept exploring my keyboard while I tried to work. It wouldn't go away, and it was pissing me off. Finally, after more dawdling, I made the decision to take its life. I don't want to, pal, but you've been in my way for too long.

I took one of the snot rags I keep around because there's still some space for me to fit my nose in to use to squeeze and crush the ant. It was around the number and F keys. I pincer the tissue around my thumb and index finger and proceed to strike. I grab at the ant ... only to see it scurry up my screen, a moving black elongation moving heavenward to the refuge of the top of my laptop.

I sigh at not being able to kill right. Maybe it really isn't in my nature. Oh well, I thought, at least it's away from the keyboard so I can work again, and it'll be so scared off that I it'll finally get off of my computer. But it didn't. It scurried to the right corner of my lid and just stayed there. I couldn't ignore it any longer so I had to stop typing and see what the hell he was doing.

I tried moving the lid up and down to jostle him off, but he held on. He wasn't moving, but he was shaking. I peer closer; it was doing this thing I've seen flies do, namely put its legs behind its head feverishly. Flies do it, I think, to shake off any particles they pick up from flying. This ant, though, it looked different. It felt like he was prying something loose, or desperately trying to put something back where it belonged. Like a leg I broke when trying to kill it.

Such a devastating revelation was confirmed when I saw the ant curl itself into the fetal position and shake violently. Now I really don't know why it was doing that; either it was really attempting to fix something, or it was hurt. Regardless, I don't think it had the ability to crawl off my laptop at this point. And it was my fault.

What to do? The rational thing would be to apologize to the ant and beg for its forgivness, but it's an ant. I wounded it to the point it can't function anymore. I shouldn't've done that. I should've just let it be, or at the very least killed it without making it suffer. So the best thing to be done at this juncture is to kill it for good. This time I have space to maneuver my hands around because the poor ant is stuck in the corner of my laptop lid. So, with the ant physically spasming in a state of shock, I finally crushed the thing in my tissue.

I wish I'd never seen that ant.

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