How My Silence Became Pain
Sometimes I would sit by the window and watch as ants march in long columns along the horizontal frame of the louvers in my room. They would march the way soldiers marched in a parade, chest puffed, shoulders up, arms swinging and face forward. I would even imagine their regiments of toil for food morning, afternoon and night; how they combed the nooks and the hidden corners of the house. Whenever they veered from the window and entered my room, I’d stay up all night to watch them and wonder how it was that they did all these things without a manual and yet with so much coordination and precision.
I used to be bothered that people found doing this odd. My brothers, the twins, miserable little monsters would on some instances barge into my room, knock me over with a kick to the jaw and then in a move that looked rehearsed begin stamping upon the ants. I, distraught and angry would chase them both as they run towards different angles in the house. Sometimes, I got this feeling that mother was in on it with them with the way she protected them whenever our cat and mouse chase went in the direction of wherever she was in the house. She would complain about how the ants were irritating them and making them ill even though I had never seen either of the two block-heads ill a day in their lives. She would complain about how I littered the house with breadcrumbs, chocolate biscuits or anything yet wouldn’t join in cleaning up the house whenever she called me to.
As the years strolled by, I got used to the pranks of the twins which became regular…