Treetop Rumination

Here I sit, perched in a tree, actually two trees, overlooking the westwardly blowing Lago Atitlan, flicking away large red ants with the deft gesticulation that now accompanies the ordinary chaos of my inner thoughts. These ants are reminiscent of the wee-wee in Belize, with their large legs, but these guys aren’t carrying bits of leaves on their backs, nor are they caught up in the massive highway systems that, in some, inspire awe and respect, and in others, foment feelings of frustration and malice (primarily fruit tree farmers). Where do these solitary wanderers keep coming from, and more importantly, why? Is it simply the same bull-headed fellow returning each time with a renewed determination to pester me? That suspicion seems dubious enough to motivate an at least cursory investigation into the matter. It’s not the fresh strawberries we bought today and left out in a pot. That would make sense. Behind the pot, though, I find a plastic honey-bear container knocked over, lying corpse-like, and though it is not spilling out, some twenty ants seem to find enough residual honey on his outside to make quite a feast. In the stickiness that annoys me so, these ants appear to have discovered a font of gluttonous oblivion. In fact, they appear downright comatose. And their number is growing, now in small swarms, so that it is difficult to discern the feeding frenzy from a slow, silent orgy, bodies piled atop one other listlessly. One ant gently nudges a cluster whose only sign of life is the occasional trembling of a leg. There is no acknowledgement. He moves on to find action elsewhere. Or are all these ants she’s? I have read that male forager ants only come out for a brief tour of duty with the queen. They are not even endowed with mouths, so ephemeral is their solely sexual sojourn on this planet. How much longer shall I let them enjoy their base opiate, their bacchanalia devoid of any decipherable ritual, festivity, or merriment? Maybe they will rid the bottle of its confounded tacky film, much like the brief but overwhelming invasion of army ants that cleans a household of all matter of microscopic detritus. That would be nice. Or perhaps they will diversify their interests here and spread to the – no, they have already made their way into the strawberry pot. I am not as comfortable with this, and now I feel once again compelled to fling each approaching freeloader from the porch of this treetop house, but now with rejuvenated vigor, making use of rusty paper football techniques from my youth. And though these ants soar almost infinitely downward from the heights of the hillside canopy, I have the distinct feeling, at once unsettling and comforting, that they will return.