"Swarm"

 

[While I'm writing about ants, might as well include a link to an article about ant behavior that I thought was a good read: "7 Reasons Ants Will Inherit the Earth"]

Lina had been at the window for a few minutes when Kristin came up behind her. Together they stood and watched a mad cluster of ants, thick as a cloud, swarm their front porch.

"I heard that ants go crazy like that right before a storm comes," Lina said, her eyes focused outside.

"Really?" Kristin murmured. "I heard that when they pile on each other like that, they're basically two colonies at war, fighting each other."

Lina turned. "Just have to disagree with me on everything, don't you?" Her smile was little more than a twist of her lips, as if she had swallowed something sour. 

Kristin sighed and pressed closer, placing her hand on Lina's arm, her chin on Lina's shoulder. "I'm sorry," she told her. "I didn't mean it like that. Look, can we, I don't know, just press 'rewind' and go back fifteen minutes or something? Try that again?" Outside, the sound of thunder rolled toward them like an army.

"The Pole That Wanted to Be a Windmill"

 

[Screw the hiatus. I want my blog back.]

The pole had never heard the entire story, just one element of the plot: that, once upon a time, a man had engaged a windmill in battle. For the pole, it was enough. Even the traffic lights complained about how boring things were, and their lives were among the most colorful in the neighborhood. The pole aspired to the knightly life of a windmill but wasn't sure it was an attainable goal.

"It isn't," a lamppost offered. "There is nothing knightly about you. Why, just look at your bearing, all stiff and wooden." The lamppost then flicked its overhead light on, just in case the pole was having trouble seeing its point.

The pole was given hope one afternoon, when a utility worker nailed a thin red board to one side of it. The board crossed the pole's body, looking a bit like a pair of arms. The pole was armed! Or it was marked, at least. After that, the pole waited months for greatness. But greatness never arrived, and the pole's hopes, like the thin board's red paint, began to fade.

Then came the night of the storm. The wind wailed and the rain clawed and bit, and the pole rocked anxiously in its spot in the ground. "Flooding at the north end of the road," the poles and posts along the street called, their voices becoming part of the storm's untethered groan.

"Flooding at the north end of the road," the would-be windmill repeated as part of the relay. A splinter of a moment after it spoke, it saw the headlights: a car was approaching from the south.

The pole knew what risks the car and its occupants faced if they continued north. It also knew that windmills, especially ones destined to engage in heroic battles, weren't supposed to fall. But the pole could no longer deny the truth: it was neither knightly nor a windmill, and it wasn't designed for combat. It was, however, capable of tilting.

"There was another thing from some other story I heard once," said the pole to no one in particular, "something about, 'It is a far, far better thing that I do....'" With that, the pole shifted its weight and sent its body crashing down onto the road, ahead of the car's path. The thin red board separated and dropped onto the pavement next to it, like a weapon dropped in surrender.

"The Frog"

 

Umbrellas open.

Pavement stones thick as lily pads together.

Rain leaps from one to the next.