The ants slink out of a saw-cut hole on the left-hand side of a wooden plank. The hole isn’t even round – its edges are jagged and unkempt, the jutting splinters like the bristles of a two-day beard. The insects stumble at first, their single-file line wavering hesitantly before asymptotically aligning along a single mahogany-brown grain-line in the wood.
They march, antennae-to-abdomen, tapping so softly on the wood that they can’t be heard without pressing one’s ear right up against the plank itself. Their rhythm is so steady, their speed so fixed, that they look like a thin stream of water dribbling down the side of a cup, writhing with childish abandon at first, then gradually falling into the well-trodden trails down the side, marked by the dotted speckles from streams of yesteryear.
At the end of the ants’ path, they come upon another hole, lined on its sloping rims with a slick substance. One by one, the ants fall into the hole, the next one in line failing to notice the bottomless abyss until the previous ant tumbles away, revealing all too late the gaping destiny. Frantically, for a moment, the ant fights the well, although all six of its legs are already so far from the sane wood that they only grasp air. The ant behind is amused at this little jig – it looks funky. Catchy, almost. It makes no move to reclaim its dancing comrade.
In the midst of this juxtaposition of amusement and tragedy lies enlightenment.
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