TonyNovak.com
Writing Excerpt
The Ants are Gone
All summer I battled the ants. The soldiers showed up in June to collect fresh
cookie crumbs and invade cotton candy bags and feast on sugary toothpaste spills
smeared by tiny fingers.
I cursed the long lines of bugs that claimed the walls all July and pointed to
spills of squeezed lemonade and fruit juices that squirt across the floor on
hazy mornings. They carried tiny pieces of crab shell launched across the room when little
hands beat the red claws with wooden hammers.
By August I gave up. I had battled and lost. The ripe tomatoes that overflowed
skinny arms on the trip from our backyard garden to the window shelf now fed the ants when
they sprayed the floor. A single dad was no match for this assault. We had far too much to do
this month than
to waste our summer cleaning the house.
Now the ants are gone. The floor is bare. The carpet cleaned. They have no reason to
be. The hallway echoes empty in the crisp September air. The bubblegum toothpaste lies cold, hard, and lifeless
on the sink until the kids
come again. Dried tomatoes in sealed glass jars impress me but not the ants. I
miss them.
This entry came from my journal on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. We lived in a small old garden home in Ocean City, New Jersey - an enchanted place to live. The journal makes no mention of other world events of that day but rather shows that I was wholly consumed with reflection on the recent vacancy that occurred each September as my children returned to their mother's home in Pennsylvania.
Our house in Ocean City, 2001