I bent over the arm rest of the sofa to look down at a beige ocean of soft carpet prickles. Amidst was an outstandingly dark ant crawling its way in and out of the weaves of the vast ocean. I poked it with my lighter a few times, and it would spur into a hasty movement in some random direction. This was entertaining for a while. I continued barricading the ant whichever way it crawled, using the white lighter as a wall.
I even thought about showing the ant some fire. At a flick of my thumb this ant could have been flamed to ashes at the expense of my own selfish entertainment, but no.
I backed up and sat upright on the couch, now looking down on the ant, the only ant on the whole span of the room's carpet. It was somewhat liberating, as a human, to see a simple bug live the same hard struggle we all do in our everyday lives - the struggle to survive. The ant was out of place. It had nobody. All the other ants were just steps away from the family room couch - outside in the backyard. I had no idea how it got in, because the screen door is elevated above the ground a few steps.
Looking for somewhere safe to go, searching for familiar faces in an ocean of neverending prickles is hard, oh, I know. So I decided to let the ant go, saving him from my own sadistic sense of humour that so many other people in this world seem to share. I went outside for a smoke in the moonlight.
I stepped on dozens of ants, walking along the nightlit pavement to my chair, and another dozen on the way back inside. Stoned, I suddenly noticed a familiar dark spot on the carpet. It had stopped moving. It turns out I had accidentally stepped on my dear ant friend. I, too, stopped.
A tear came to my eye.
I mourned the death of the ant, the only ant on the carpet,
and then went to bed.
