Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Stalking of Platypus


The part of the self that wants crushing. Whatever could be added to could not be taken away from. But that's all wrong. Begin the beginning:

See a girl with fists in her eyes, a yellow bawling out in the school yard. Pleated grass and bushes forming tunnels, the blacktop, the white lines of a kickball field, monkey bars, jungle gym, swings, the metal bars for flipping that she lay under, bawling, crushing out her eyes, the pain in her forehead searing and the sun hanging light in the sky. Her age was unknown, guessed to be eight and probably right. The teachers stood around the field in strategic places, pillars of watchfulness but were really just regular. It is the children who are strange and out of place, unthinkable and different, not yet molded into imperfection and the realized fallacy of idolatry.
"Pick a hero and write a paper. We will share them in class tomorrow."
She chose the ants in her bedroom. She wrote about their courage, their indefatigable journey towards nowhere. How when she crushed her finger upon one the rest would rise him above and carry him safely homeward. The ants that for all their smallness were really larger than her, they crossed vast distances from her bedpost to the dresser the windowsill the crack beneath the door, and they formed a part of a whole, that there even was a whole and they moved together and unquestioningly obeyed the queen.


Part 1

The Ant Moll