We Are the Ants

by Shaun David Hutchinson

Before you ask: no, the sluggers have never probed my anus. I’m fairly certain they reserve that special treat for people who talk on their phones during movies, or text while driving.

Diego’s unwillingness to discuss why he moved from Colorado to a shit hole town in the limp dick of the nation only made me more curious.

Finally I said, “What if I don’t give a shit about the world?” Diego gathered our trash and frowned. “I’d say that’s pretty fucking sad.” “Why?” “Because the world is so beautiful.”

I smiled and hugged her. She felt small and fragile, the way ice over a lake thins as the weather turns warm. Cracks were beginning to appear on the surface, but she’d always been a stubborn constant in my life, and I refused to count her out.

and his greatest fear is being murdered by his time-traveling self from the future.

Marcus shook his head. His bangs fell over his forehead, and he flicked them back. “No . . . I missed you, Henry.” I tapped my lips with the tip of my finger. “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a magical device that allowed two people to talk over long distances any time they wanted? They could call it a talky-box.”

“I just thought I could show you something beautiful.” He glared at the telescope. “Or try to, anyway.” I trudged back to the blanket, flopping down and staring at my toes. It was one of the most considerate things anyone had done for me, and that twisted my stomach into knots. “Why are you so nice to me?” “I’ve got a soft spot for lost causes.”

A moment later he said, “I believe you, you know.” “I don’t need you to believe me.” “I know. It’s one of the things I like most about you.”

Diego laughed, and I wanted to preserve the sound in a jar for the days when laughter was scarce.

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s a waste of good hair.”

He pressed his lips to mine and wrapped his arms around my waist. Diego tasted like root beer and barbecue sauce. He smelled better than summer. Bigger than the ocean.

“I like people, not the parts they have.” Diego frowned. “Well, I mean, I definitely like the parts; they’re just not why I like the person.”

“Last night I was created from light. Stoplights and patio lights and campfire lights and Christmas lights still up in summer. Sunlight and moonlight and starlight and light that’s taken a million, million years to arrive. I was made of them all.

Teenage boys who are dead probably can’t masturbate, and it made me sad to think about Jesse stuck in the afterlife, lonely, frustrated, and unable to get off.

Maybe that’s why you’re perfect for each other.” “Do you think it could last?” “Who cares?” “I care.” Audrey sucked up her drink and tossed the empty cup onto the ground. There was no way we were going to be able to hide the fact that we’d had a party from Mom. Fuck it. “You like bacon, right?” Audrey asked. “Duh.” “So, when you’re offered bacon for breakfast, do you refuse because you’re worried about what’s going to happen when it’s gone?” “No.” “No!” Audrey smacked me in the chest. “You eat that bacon and you love it because it’s delicious. You don’t fret over whether you’ll ever have bacon again. You just eat the bacon.” Audrey stood in front of me and held my face between her hands. Her expression was so solemn that it was difficult not to laugh. “Eat the bacon, Henry.” A roar erupted from Charlie and his friends. Audrey and I turned in time to watch a plume of fire and sparks shoot into the air and explode like a supernova. Diego winked at me from across the lawn. “I’m assuming Diego is the bacon in that analogy.” “I need another drink.”

One summer my parents sent me and Charlie to stay with our uncle Joe in Seattle. I had to share a room with Charlie, and his snoring kept me from sleeping. Uncle Joe gave me a white-noise machine. When it was time for bed, I fired it up and listened to the static. It was nice at first—like crumpling paper or a fly’s endlessly buzzing wings—but after a while, I began to hear things in the noise. Random words or bits of music repeating. I woke up Charlie and made him listen, convinced I’d discovered a secret message left by spies, but he punched me and went back to sleep. Once I heard the pattern, I couldn’t stop hearing it, and I spent the rest of the summer looking and listening for patterns in other random sources—the wind, clothes tumbling in the dryer. I even pulled out one of Uncle Joe’s old television sets to watch the snow. We look for the same patterns in our lives to give them meaning. When someone says, “Everything happens for a reason,” they’re trying to convince you there’s a pattern to your life, and that if you pay close attention, it’s possible to decipher it.

Miranda, one of the moons belonging to Uranus, features a patchwork of ridges and cliffs, grooved structures called coronae, and massive canyons up to twelve times deeper than the Grand Canyon.

We remember the past, live in the present, and write the future.