We Are the Ants

by Shaun David Hutchinson

Your entire sense of self-worth is predicated upon your belief that you matter, that you matter to the universe. But you don’t. Because we are the ants.

As human beings, we’re born believing that we are the apex of creation, that we are invincible, that no problem exists that we cannot solve. But we inevitably die with all our beliefs broken.

The farther we are from one another, the further we live in each other’s pasts.

I always sat at the bow, dangling my feet over the side, letting the water tickle my toes as we sped through the intracoastal toward the deep sea. I loved how the sun and salt spray perfused my skin, filling me with the memory of light. God surely meant for humans to live like that. He hadn’t intended for us to wither into desiccated husks in front of brightly lit screens that leeched away our summer days one meme at a time.

High school is like those fishing trips with my dad: I want to be there, I want to enjoy myself like everyone else, but I always end up huddled on the floor, praying for the end.

Worse still, he knows it.

To him, I am the cheap pair of sunglasses you buy on vacation because you know you won’t care if you break or lose them.

The problem with choices is that I usually make the wrong ones.

We drank beer on the beach and lay in each other’s arms until the sun was only a memory burned into our brains.

Sometimes, Henry, remembering hurts too much.”

“When the days are darkest, dear, you latch on to happiness wherever you find it.”

“You’ll understand when you’re my age, Henry. You spend your life hoarding memories against the day when you’ll lack the energy to go out and make new ones, because that’s the comfort of old age. The ability to look back on your life and know that you left your mark on the world. But I’m losing my memories. It’s like someone’s broken into my piggy bank and is robbing me one penny at a time. It’s happening so slowly, I can hardly tell what’s missing.”

He didn’t kill himself because of a single overwhelming problem; he died from a thousand tiny wounds.

“Maybe you were fine, but I needed you.”

Except, when I was with Diego, the button was the last thing on my mind.

“Because sometimes it’s easier to start over with a clean slate than to drag the baggage of your past with you wherever you go.”

It seems unfair that an entire civilization could vanish from the universe and leave no trace behind, while Jesse lingers on. It isn’t fair that he burned out, but his light remains to remind me of everything we had and would never have again.

I had a pretty good idea what worse meant. When I found out that Jesse had hanged himself in his bedroom, I overheard my mom tell Nana that she couldn’t imagine anything worse than finding her son’s dead body, but I knew that wasn’t true. Worse would be never finding me, never knowing what had happened, but I wouldn’t have done that. Not to her, not to anyone.

Making out with Marcus had always felt like a race to the finish line, but with Diego I felt like I’d already won.

Diego grabbed the back of my head and pulled me to him, kissing me like I was the only water in the desert. He sucked the air out of me, but it was okay because he breathed for both of us—his heart pumped blood for us too. We were a closed system, complete.

“I don’t think I deserve him.” Audrey shrugged. “Probably not. But he doesn’t deserve you, either. Maybe that’s why you’re perfect for each other.”

“If a kid looks like he doesn’t give a shit, it’s not because he doesn’t believe in himself anymore; it’s because no one else believes in him.”