The Ant God

Chapter One The Visitor On a quiet summer night I was alone in my apartment watching the evening news. I do not regret that I seldom have visitors, I enjoy my solitude. So, I was startled by a knock at the door, and then the ringing of the doorbell. I mused to myself how interesting it is that everyone knocks, and then rings my doorbell. Why people don’t just choose one or the other has always fascinated me. I opened the door to a gentleman who stared deeply into my eyes; he abruptly began walking toward me. “Hello, Drew.” Knowing my name temporarily disarmed me, as he then strolled directly past me and entered my apartment without concern. I stood motionless; clinging to the doorknob and quite amazed at his audacity, still wondering how he knew my name. He walked quickly to the center of the room where he began to look around intently, as if he were a United Nations Weapons Inspector looking for hidden bombs. Since he mentioned my name, I assumed he knew me, but staring in amazement, I realized prior to this moment, that we had never met. “Excuse me, do I know you?” “No Drew,” he replied, “but you did win me, you won me on the radio.” I stood at the door with my hand on the doorknob, paralyzed with curiosity. I had determined he was not a threat, so I wasn’t worried about a home invasion, nor did he appear to be some kind of detective or agent for the tax Nazis. To me, he looked like a retired, middle-class man that one could find in a rocking chair, watching a sunset on any rural American porch. He stood about five-foot, ten-inches tall and was of medium build. He was wearing casual clothes in solid colors. Blue trousers, a gray shirt and a pair of black boots similar to Spanish or Italian dance boots. He wore no jewelry, and his hair was thin, light in color and combed back tightly against his scalp. His eyes were gray, and his skin was light and appeared very dry. I noticed that he wore no cologne and carried nothing with him. As I was examining him, he was carefully examining my apartment. He had extended no handshake, nor had he introduced himself to me: And yet he barged into my apartment like he lived there. He was so fast, slick and so sudden, that I watched all of this happen without offering any resistance. “Excuse me, sir. I think I do mean to be rude, when I ask you what you are doing here? I didn’t win you; I don’t even know you, so why don’t you step back outside and we will start this over again.” He sat down. “Hey,” I said, “maybe you did not hear me, I said…” He held up his hand in a gesture of silence and said, “Drew, Drew, listen to me. You won me on a radio talk show. You identified some songs and won an “Interview with an angel,” and Drew, I am the Angel. You have two hours, so we should not waste time. You will find that it cannot be replaced and it goes by very quickly.” Then it dawned on me; my first recollection of what he was talking about now entered my mind. I had won something on a radio talk show, but I thought it was concert tickets or a new artist debut album. I even thought it might have been a hoax, but now I realized what the event was that he was referring to. Still, I felt indignant about his presumptuous entrance to my home. I am aware of the rude and intrusive nature of the morning DJs we hear on the radio. It is not unusual in today’s radio and TV “reality” type thinking to have some prank pulled on you. But I am not in that crowd, and rarely ever turn on the radio or television. As simple as my apartment is, it is my little castle, and he had breached the walls without my approval. I stood at my front door with white knuckles still gripping the doorknob as he sat examining my inner sanctum. My apartment is small, perhaps fifteen feet wide and twenty-five feet long, with a small kitchen and one bedroom. I have a couch, a chair and a desk. A small coffee table made from a sea trunk sits in the middle of the room and supports my little hobby, an ant farm. An ant farm is two upright pieces of glass mounted in wooden slots, one inch apart. They are about twelve-by-eighteen inches in size and filled with dirt in-between the glass. This is the world of my little ants, where I watch them dig tunnels and go about their daily routines very similar to what many people do with fish aquariums. I chose ants for three reasons; they are easier to keep. You don’t get too attached to them. And lastly, I can also leave home for longer periods of time, without needing someone to look after them. I realized that he was not going to leave, and I really did not want to physically force him to go. So I closed my door and sat down in the chair across from my visitor¬—this so-called angel, this prize that I supposedly had won. I just stared at him as he continued to examine my quarters. Suddenly I remembered what he was referring to. “I was really upset with that radio station; they never did explain to me what I had won. I guess you’re going to do that now, huh?” He did not respond, but just kept looking about the room until his eyes finally focused on my ant farm. “I see you are a god,” he said. “What?” I responded, “Excuse me… what are you talking about?” “Your ant farm, your ants. That is what I am referring to. I see you are a god.” “Sir, I am not God!” I said indignantly. “I am just me, not God and you’re not God either! I work every day for a living, I pay my bills and I don’t barge into people’s apartments. If I say I am going to do something, I do it. Where in the hel... heck did you get off calling me God for heaven’s sake?” “I did not say, that you were God, I said you were a god.” I was astounded and replied more abruptly, “What are you talking about?” “Is this your ant farm? Are these your ants?” “Yes,” I said. “Do you feed them, care for them, give them food and water, perhaps throw in a spider, cricket or fly for your entertainment?” “Well, yes, not for entertainment but for food.” His expression told me that he saw right through my comment. Both he and I knew that I could feed these guys peanut butter and they would be happy, and that I did throw creatures in there to be attacked and consumed by the ants. I justified my barbarity by thinking it settled their native desire to hunt, and kept the feeling more natural. My visitor seemed to know, and I was clearly aware that he knew, that whenever I fed a live bug to my ants, I did it to watch the spectacle. It indeed was to create a miniature drama of a little bug warrior dying at the hand of the ant gladiators in my tiny coliseum. I also knew that whether I said I “fed” or “gave” my ants the creature, I felt much like a Roman emperor, feeding Christians to the lions in ancient Rome, and I had no pangs of guilt or remorse, after all, they were just bugs. “Let me ask you, Drew, can you kill these creatures? Do you not provide for all their needs, and yet you cannot control their thoughts, their actions or anything about them? They go about doing what ants do, with or without your permission, am I right? They don’t know you, and you do not know them, nor what they think. You do not know if they wonder about you, worship you or hate you, and you do not care. Yet it is you who controls their very existence, their lives, their ability to be content and live. They roam about, doing what ants do, nipping off each other’s antennae, building homes and storehouses. And if they choose to fight, love or procreate, you are prohibited from being involved. “They are led by a queen, who has only a mystical power over them. But if they desired, they could easily overpower her and kill her. But they are in her spell, and they protect and care for her every need. You are really not much interested, however. You just provide for them and watch them whenever you wish to. Are you not their god, Drew? Think about it? Are y