Waving Not Drowning

Jesus christ woman, I can smell you from here. I don't know what you've been doing but whatever it is you need to take a shower. Or four. Pronto, capiche? You know I love you but seriously, what have you eaten, a dead baby? Holy dinah, darlin' you are not fit for public consumption. Oh! Oh oh oh oh! Put your shoes back on. PUT YOUR SHOES BACK ON! For the love of all that's holy and I include among that our glorious, sacred, if somewhat left of center, occasionally anachronistic union, put 'em back on your feet and then take them off in an airtight, sealed chamber where they shall promptly be incinerated. Can you not smell that? How can you NOT smell that. How can the entire neighbourhood not smell that? It's worse than the worst ridiculously over priced cheese you could imagine. Worse than that runny Belgian cheese you brought home at christmas! Phew. They let you train in those? In a group? You didn't gas the entire class with the stench? Tell me, I'm s...

It's darker than she expected. Only 8:30. Closer to fall now, that didn't take long. It's risky but she's cutting through the church lawn and the new concrete walkway, freshly painted. A writhing dark mound appears at her feet, undulating, ebbing and flowing at it's outer most edges. Ants. Thousands of them. Small, fluid, perpetual motion machines. So busy, so fast. All clumped together on top of each other in the middle of a huge expanse of barren concrete, in a crack. What is it that draws them to congregate at this point, this fissure in the ground? She stops, pondering how they know that this is the place, the perfect spot to harbour a colony. To forage and feed, build a compound all for themselves. In the morning they'll be gone, washed away by the overnight storm. Ephemeral. Moment to moment. The steps of the church have transformed, freshly painted an ochre~y cappuccino with too much of a gloss, ridiculously slick. An accident waiting to happen. Come Mond...