A light cloud of dust flew up as I sank down onto my tattered beige couch still clutching the note Frank had just brought me. I knew what had to be done; I just didn't want to do it.
My money was almost completely gone. The bank account details I had just received foretold that perhaps only a few weeks were left of my savings, and then I would be literally broke. How Frank had access to my private bank details initially annoyed me but then I ignored the feeling right away; if there's anyone I trust it's Frank. Plus, I've never heard of a Pigeon that committed a bank robbery, have you? I almost broke a smile as I imagined Frank transferring my cash into his private Swiss account then escaping the country to Mexico and changing his name to 'Frankos' to escape Interpol.
But this was no time to jest. I was in trouble, and the state of utopian bliss I had been living in ever since I was fired a year ago had come to an abrupt end. No more long days of sweet contemplation, listening to an endless stream of beautiful records and writing; reality had just slapped me in the face and left a giant hand print on my cheek. The couch seemed to get bigger and I seemed to get smaller as the realities of our capitalist world set in. If only we could go back to the days of small societies made up of no more than a few hundred, where each person had a skill and everything was done by trading. Like I make chairs and you sell chickens. I need a chicken and you need a chair. We are in business...
But unfortunately times are not as simple as they used to be. I will have to start looking for a job and that means being around people, let alone corporate assholes, all the time and I have enough trouble with my rare encounters with the public as it is. God help me.
As I was sinking deeper into despair on the giant couch, something caught my attention out of the corner of my right eye. My eyes focused down on the ground and I saw her for the first time, carrying what seemed to be a small crumb somewhere. You may be asking yourself how does one know that an ant is a 'she'? Well, there was just a feminine quality about her. The way she walked, I guess...
Now when you're living alone in a dump like mine you get used to noticing things crawling everywhere, but for some reason this time I could not ignore her presence and became fascinated by my little flat mate. Slowly I knelt down to her level; my face inches away and I studied this other creation of God that also called my apartment home. When I got closer I realized that the small crumb was actually a little smaller than the ant itself and it was quite obviously straining to keep it on her back as she moved towards a certain direction. Perhaps she was getting the food to feed her family and there are a dozen little ants waiting with empty stomachs somewhere.
This, in reality, is her job. She doesn't wake up and put on a suit and constrict her breathing with a necktie. She doesn't check in to the corporate monster on time and share retarded pleasantries with people she doesn't even like. She doesn't brownnose the stupid boss to compete over the next appraisal with her fellow brown-nosers. She is surviving, because that is the bottom line of any life form...to survive and support your young until they are at an age to support themselves and repeat the process. It's an absurd reality, but a reality nonetheless...
My presence was obviously alarming her as the shadow from my relatively giant face covered the entire area around her. At first she froze completely, but then the strangest thing happened. It was almost as if she looked up at me, quivering with fear at this giant who was suddenly focused on her. Then she gently unloaded the piece of bread and shuffled away slowly, almost as if she had been caught stealing something and now the giant has become aware of his missing breadcrumb. Then when it had reached a safe distance it suddenly went on a full-on sprint to the corner of the room until it disappeared into one of the cracks in the wall, which I deduced must be her home.
Then an odd realization hit me, how does this ant see me? Perhaps I am just the giant that leaves around bread crumbs everywhere that it takes for its family to survive. But what if it's more than that? Perhaps she and her entire family living in the wall consider me somewhat of a God. Let's look at this relatively; I am huge in size, I have the ability to make a room light up with the flick of a switch and make sounds coming out of my vocal chords that must sound devastatingly otherworldly to it. Perhaps, just perhaps, these ants worship me in their little cave in the wall, with shrines and sacrifices to please the Giant so that he'll leave more breadcrumbs and not crush them with his huge feet. It's terrifying when you think about it; their mental abilities do not even allow the possibility to understand what is really going on, they just provide explanations and justifications as they see it from their own tiny perspective...
I got up on my feet again but suddenly felt the pangs of guilt about making the ant lose its food, so I immediately went to the kitchen, got a few pieces of bread and left dozens of crumbs around the crack in the wall where it had disappeared. I made a conscious decision to focus on my relationship with my new friend for the next few days as I also returned to thinking about my money situation.
I would leave out crumbs twice a day and wait to see it appear and gather them, for some reason this sight filled my heart with happiness. A confused and limited being helping another confused and limited being. The rest of my days I spent pacing around the apartment while listening to records and thinking, I had been out of the employment game for so long I didn't even know where to start. I didn't even know what I could do since going back to teaching was obviously out of the question with my record; no good school would hire me. Therefore I would have to use the fact that my English is good to get some kind of writing job at a company or something...
On the fourth day my friend did not appear for lunch to collect on the breadcrumbs I had left. When it didn't appear for the dinner portion and the food sat untouched I began to worry, had it perhaps moved to another crack in another apartment? Were my breadcrumbs not enough or of bad quality? I felt betrayed. Then the thought occurred and I felt the tip of the knife touch my heart. Almost in slow motion I moved to the couch...sat down...lifted my foot and looked...the knife was pushed violently into my heart and a single tear crawled out of one eye...utopia is officially over.
