Horrible news: My ant farm is dying. I knew this was gonna happen, I just didn't expect it to be so terrible to watch. When the first ant died, I was actually kinda stoked. This is because in the booklet that came with the ant farm it told me this would happen eventually and it told me what the ants would do when one of them died (the booklet had nailed every aspect of the ants' behavior up to this point - The way they dug, their shift-splitting so that some slept while some patrolled, the tiny specks of ant shit that they confined to one room of their home). But this time the booklet was wrong. They were supposed to carry the dead ant up to the surface. They were supposed to know, instinctively, that the rotting ant corpse might introduce pestilence to their habitat. I was supposed to take the corpse out of the ant farm once it was carried to the surface, which was supposed to happen almost immediately. Sadly, all the other ants did was push the body out of the way as they went about their business. Every so often, one would tug the body around a little bit, but there never seemed to be a team effort to get the recently departed to the surface.
The late ant had curled into a ball upon expiration, so I had the bright idea to tip the farm upside down and have him tumble out. No dice. He had one minuscule leg that stuck right out and stymied his rolling. In the meantime, though, I had panicked the rest of the ants. My rescue attempts were at an end, and I had to just sit back and see how things progressed from this point on.
After a few days, it seemed like the majority of the ants were relaxing in the bottom-most chamber, where they "slept" at night. One or two would be up top, moping about, but all new construction had stopped. Then another ant died. It seemed like she (all the ants are girls, just like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park) had had the courtesy to die in another room of the farm. Or had she gone for a walk and died halfway through? No way to know. Every day I'd come home from work to find one or two more dead, but always in a room away from the main sleeping chamber. Still the two up top, and the other survivors huddled together in the bottom.
This is when I started thinking. These are only insects, but it still sucks to see them die. There's no way to tell just how many "wild" ants have died from my actions, accidentally (day-to-day walking) or on purpose (magnifying glass, retaliatory attack for biting my leg). But these were my ants. When a stray dog dies that no one cares about, no one cries. When the family dog passes on, it is a tragedy of epic proportions. Was I falling prey to this same sort of thing, only over 25 harvester ants? I don't think so. I had no real attachment to the little guys (girls), but the pathetic existence they led and the way the slowly and sadly shuffled off this mortal coil was distressing. Now it's down to the last two ants, the hardy ones that stayed up top roaming while the rest gave up and shrivelled and died (the sleep chamber is now full of dead ants, as the last ten or so elected to stay put and die there rather than politely expire elsewhere). I look at the last two and wonder whether or not to set them free, and I think that that would be far crueler than keeping them in the farm. There is a good reason for me thinking this. For starters, these ants were born in captivity and in all actuality have no idea of the world beyond the curved plastic walls of their prison. So is it really a prison? Would a fish raised in a fish tank be happier released into the wild in the twilight of its life? Would I enjoy it if, when I was 80 or so, someone took me out of my house and put me in the forest and said, "There you go, buddy, you're free now!" or would my heart seize up in terror? So there's that to consider. My ants have lived an existence free of predators and exterminators and the elements. Their simple needs were met, and their environment catered to their instincts: they dug, and walked around. There was no queen for them to serve, but they would have lived no longer had she been there. So they lived their life and did their thing and didn't have the fear that the normal ant would have. So I can't really feel that bad for them. It's the circle of life, after all. It still sucked to see them go. I'll miss their pointless busywork and the way that whenever they met, their antennae would do a little handshake. I liked that whenever I would open the top, whoever was patrolling the upper level would rush down and rouse the others, who would then all swarm to the top to see was the fuss was about.
Now I look in at the last two survivors, creeping around the dead bodies of their sisters, and I see a life led toiling away at tunnels that went in circles, of pointless work for a queen who they never saw, labor that was never rewarded, and a world that had definite limits, and I think how lucky these ants are to be so very simple. So simple that they will never have moments like this, where they see something simpler than themselves and they realize that this simple thing they are seeing puts into perspective things that are much, much larger than themselves. Because every time I look in, I also see my own reflection looking back at me.
...and now for something completely different.
Soundtrack change: "Elderly woman behind the counter in a small town" by Pearl Jam
Further evidence that I'm out of the shelter of my old Neverland, and that this strange place and new life is as much a shock to me as factory work would be for Peter Pan:
Went to my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana last weekend to see my elderly grandparents. It wasn't an easy visit. Communication with my grandparents is a nightmare. There are no commonalities. What should have been a stop-in for lunch became, due to my ignorance in planning, nearly two days in hell. I'm punishing myself. I must be - first the move to Dallas, and not this. They talk about friends and/or relations who are dead and/or dying. Each one of them holds a separate and unique conversation with me at exactly the same time, each one taking moments out of their own endless monologue to interrupt the other's monologue for clarification on something they had forgotten. Making matters worse, neither one can hear the other, so grandparent-to-grandparent interaction is a sad, loud and funny show of its own. They bitch and moan about the (n-words) who are "taking over the neighborhood." It's a sad, sad visit. Am I supposed to like these people just because they pitched in on my creation by performing an act of coitus 60 years ago? I mean, shit, I'm related to them through my mother, who I really have nothing in common with, who I have not spoken a civil word to in 10 years, or even heard from in two. I know I can't write my grandparents off, and I do respect my elders and all, but good god this hurts. Why hasn't my aunt or uncle put them in a home yet? After a few quiet hours staring at the carpet, I head off to bed which, if I'm not mistaken, consists only of a box spring with a sheet over it, no mattress.
Breakfast is "Oatmeal," which somehow means corn flakes with a bunch of Splenda at the bottom. Two hours later, we're off to the Piccadilly Cafeteria, where the post-church crowd and white-trash stereotypes go to eat. We got there early and lined up, and were the first ones in when the doors opened. I chose a seat which, for my own personal amusement, allowed me to see each and every person coming off the food line with their tray. My, oh, my. Let me just state for the record that I am aware that I was sitting in the same place as the people I was laughing at the expense of. I'm superior to them, of course, because I didn't leave the house in a yellow t-shirt that reads "It's not a bald spot, it's a solar panel for a sex machine." Oh, yeah, you bet that guy was there. With his family. Also present are "Mom" jeans, NASCAR hats worn without a trace of irony, missing teeth, patterned sun dresses from the 70's worn in a non-hippy fashion, sleeveless hair-band concert shirts, etc. All of these people were quiet and looked unhappy. Maybe it was because church just got out and they were still in the throes of reverence, but laughter was at an absolute minimum and enjoyment was not in the vicinity. The world is sometimes a very ugly place, full of sad people in unintentionally funny clothes, people for whom smiles are few and far between. At least it is that way in my hometown. It's a poor and backwards part of the world, the embarrassing older brother of American culture. It's worse than movies make it out to be. It is quite miserable. I am so happy that my parents moved us kids to California when we were young, and I called my father later and told him just that.
Next time you see Britney Spears on the TV driving on a suspended license while intoxicated and using her infant children as airbags, I want you to understand that she comes from Louisiana, and the statement that starts with, "You can take the girl out of the trailer park..." is absolutely true. I was happy, for once, to be heading back to Dallas.
