by Joshua Siegal

An ant with a red pepper flake in its mandibles wanders the tabletop.  I set down a glass of water in his path and he dodges.  He could probably walk over the surface tension of the drops pooling there, drop his pepper flake, and drink.  Instead, he wants his roundabout patterns and his fiery morsel.  Most ants will avoid black and red pepper, but this one lifts his trophy proudly above his head, walking his wobbly circle.  Could he be punishing himself, or is some supposed sustenance slowly poisoning him?

I gaze down at my plate of food.  Over at the microwave.  I think of the convenience store freezer.  With my fingernails forming a tiny clamp, I try to wrest the pepper flake away from the ant, pulling down and away.  I drag him for a moment, and he releases his charge, then lunges forward and bites my thumb.  I pose my fist above him and he stares up, dumb, and antlers twitching.  I place a crumb from my plate before him, but he continues to stare, his head a tiny arrow focused on the pepper flake between my thumb and forefinger.  Curious, I place the pepper flake down beside the crumb.  The ant scampers over and grasps the pepper flake, picks it up, and resumes his debilitated wandering.

A day later, I find him on the kitchen floor, dead.  His mandibles still grasp the pepper flake in a kind of rigor mortis.  I clean him off the floor with a paper towel and unwrap my microwave dinner, throwing his carcass in the trash with my meal’s plastic wrapper.