When I was 6 or 7 my Dad told me to stick my hand in an anthill.
Like all kids, I’d been stung by ants, had even run screaming into the house from them on occasion. Ants were what ruined summer picnics and pieces of cake left on the counter too long. Ants were swarming devils, the bane of flip flop feet and careless cloud-watching in the backyard. I stomped them when I saw them, kicked their nests for payback for all the itches they’d gifted me with. I knew ants.
We were on vacation in New England when he told me to do it, and I gave him a look like ‘what? No way!’
But again he encouraged me to do it, to trust him. I looked between him and those angry-looking ants, and I knew it was going to hurt, knew that I’d be bitten and sore and scratchy for the rest of the trip.
I wanted to prove to him that I’d do it, that I was brave and that I did trust him. So I stuck my hand in that ant hill and waited, holding back tears as they crawled over me as just another nuisance in their carefully constructed world. Not a single one stung me. I watched their forms more closely, noticing now how they were black not red or rust-colored like the demons back home.
“Black ants don’t sting.” My Dad put his hand in too and let them crawl around between the hairs on his arm, smiling at me.
I pulled my hand out of the dirt and felt a little sad at the glimpse of ant eggs beneath. “I ruined it.” The little black ants were scurrying to repair the damage right away, maybe hoping God was done tormenting them and they could get back to business.
My Dad said, “They’ll fix it, make new tunnels in the dirt. Think what the rain does to it every time it showers. Or the wind. But you learned something, right?”
“Maybe they’ll build better ones this time. Move the eggs somewhere safer.” I wanted to believe that at least.
We both brushed the tiny astronauts back into their nest, wandering off to do something else ourselves.
I thought about those ants a lot over the years, when a careless, but perhaps trusting, hand that wanted to know damaged me. I dug new tunnels, better ones than before, and moved the eggs somewhere safer. Maybe the hand learned something.