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Survival of the Fittest


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Survival of the Fittest
Mallory, Queen of the Ants

Sam Brown

    She watched the tiny black ant climb the blades of its holy atmosphere. This field was sacred, but of course, the ant did not know this. He could not possibly know that deep below the surface of his shared lair, important people were buried. No, no. He went along with his business, typical ant-like business, carrying small particles to fellow employees and then going back to retrieve more. She pictured the ant supervisor with his clipboard and sunglasses yelling, “Quickly, now! Faster!” They moved along in an assembly-line fashion until all the small particles were moved to their designated location. Then onto the next, and next, and next. Mallory thought about the little ant village and the indigenous insects that occupied it. When do they clock out? Do they ever go home? Do they tuck the baby ants in at night and read them bedtime stories? Do they need ambien and xanax and lunesta just to have dreams too?
    She was the mayor of Antville, watching them from tallest building in the field. Her head rested on a small pillow of her own long brown hair meshed with dandelions and other weeds. Her small frame fit perfect in the area of flattened grass left for her by the deer. She could not see past the high grass that surrounded her and liked it that way. The peripheral sky above was a glass ceiling. Neither her nor the ants were going any higher.
    She imagined herself lying there for an entire month, a year even, and she thought of her friends below. Their decomposition was what made this field so beautiful. They were just piles of bones and teeth now, but the roots of these plants and weeds had absorbed the souls of the deceased giving them one last breath. They need this air. They are suffocating down there. Have we buried them alive?
    Mallory tried hard to focus on the ant as he made his was across the goose-bumps of her exposed stomach. He was smart to avoid her belly button, the eternal abyss, the second charka of anger, joy, and sex. I am a short cut. Mallory Bridge. I am a stepping stone for an ant. I wonder if he knows that what he’s crawling on is alive. I wonder if he cares. She thought of the ants’ home, and how they too bury their living and only come out to work. She looked around the colony to see if she could find her ant twin. But no ant was lying on its back atop a dandelion daydreaming about microorganisms and not doing its job. They were all far too diligent.
    The ants were doomed.
    They had invested too much time and too much sweat into this colony to have god as a garden-hose come in and flood them out. It would happen. Some child would stomp on their life’s work. Some dog would piss all over their city, or worse, another, more important, animal would build its home there. These things happen, and the ants just don’t size up in the pecking order of life. They are made to feel so, so small.
    Dusk began settling in, but Mallory stayed. She stayed with the ants because everyone else was dead. All those important people were buried beneath her, and this was the closest she was going to get to making any kind of friends. Not even the ants were very friendly, but they allowed her to lie here in the St. Augusta Cemetery and just be. The ants were busy carving their niche in-between unattended, malnourished grave stones, and Mallory was too.



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