Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
Somewhere between draught and flood, famine and feast, girl and boy, is a world of ordinary magic.
Thirsty, scratchy grass underneath me feels like the end of a long summer’s day.
Ants run in orderly zig zags over my arms and legs. Skinny and strong, perfect for a five year old, Pop says. These are the mountain ranges exploring ants must conquer. They squeeze through the creases in elbows and wriggle behind knees, they seem to like the tiny tears of sweat. Sometimes I feel a tingling sting. I pretend I’m in Mass and concentrate on being still. “Hail holy queen mother of mercy hail our light, our sweetness and our hope”… I never have to go far into the prayer before the pain goes away. Practice makes perfect. That’s what grandma says.
When I grow up I want to be Marilyn Monroe. But with a penis. And I want a vagina too. I’m the only one of my friends who knows what penis and vagina are.
Ants are ants are ants. I stare into the grass as close as I can get before the grass tickles my nose. Bodies in three parts, head, stomach, bum. I see no vaginas or penises. I squint to find a mark, a freckle, a mole like the one on my nose, a darker shade of ant skin, something special that makes one stand out from the rest.
They all look exactly the same.
Sometimes I wonder if people would be happy if they were all the same.
What would happen if an ant were born different? Would its mum still love it?
Or would she eat its head until it died?
What if an ant had an accident? Lost a leg or antenna?
Like Barry Tyers in the war. He lost both hands. Sometimes I have to help him get into his house when he’s had a few too many. No one is mean to his face but people call him Mad Bugger Barry and say he’s as useful as tits on a bull when he’s not around.
If humans were like skinks we could regrow body parts. They drop their tails when the cats grab them and then grow new ones. Perhaps they have a special quiet place to go when they are mending. Like mum, she’s on the mend now, again.
A leftover crumb from my egg sandwich loses its grip on my singlet and falls thousands of feet onto the grass. One ant stops. It turns and runs to the next ant in the line. They cuddle each other’s antennae and then the second ant runs back down the line. Then like a magic trick a hundred more appear from nowhere. They know exactly where to go and what to do, the crumb is lifted like a trophy onto proud ant shoulders.
“Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow til you find your dream.” I sing for them, for me for all of us. This crumb will feed many. I have saved the lives of a thousand starving ants.
In the time it takes for me to blink, a sparrow swoops down from the washing line and snaps crumb and ants in her beak and flies off across the yard into Ken and Betty’s place. And just like that I am a murderer.
It’s getting late. Shadows from the mulberry tree grab at my hand. I am not allowed to play in the mulberry tree. I get filthy searching for silk worms and the blood red juice drips all over my clothes. We do the washing once a week, grandma, mum and me, in the copper under the house. Mulberry stains take forever to scrub clean mum says. Worse than blood mum? Yes, even worse than blood.
Mum how can something that you love so much be so much trouble?
It’s life, she says. Just life.