I peeled the banana and took two bites. That stuck feeling was in my throat. The gelatin capsule had glued itself to my esophagus and no amount of water or juice or milk or coffee would send it on its way. I could not breathe. But two bites of banana worked. That was all I needed. I hadn’t really been thinking about the room when I set this banana on the desk and went off to lace shoes, apply lip balm, assess purse. But no. That’s not quite accurate. Not true. It was a borrowed dorm room. I had seen the leaky screen in the subterranean space, the tiny toad crouched in the shower stall, the wolf spider under the bed. Still, I left the banana on the desk. Yellow skin curtained its creamy flesh. Yellow, not mottled brown. Those were almost too mushy, too sweet, which, of course, this banana would become if I placed it in a sealed bag or a hu- mid kitchen. No, make no mistake. I knew what I was doing, leaving this banana out. At evening, I returned: no ants. Relief: I sank into it. The banana was at the ready and the pills were in their bottle. I could relax. I had been meditating. I had been counting steps and stopping to watch—to notice—the blue morphos open and close their wings on the gravel path. I had been considering the round mouths of the Tancho koi, bendy straws seeking the sinking food. I had been reminded of the Five Precepts. Ahimsa: Do no harm. Sweep the path before your feet. All the way down, turtles: The teaming soil, a platform for the concrete foundation, the concrete, a platform for the tile, the tile, a platform for me to view this desk, to observe this banana before bed. I switched off the lamp, pulled up the covers. In the morning, the banana was asleep on the desk, undisturbed. A brown slick coated my teeth marks. I could have broken off the film, sunk a new bite or admitted I was through. But no. At the window, I pocketed my pills, took them to breakfast—eggs, potatoes, coffee. By evening, only a few ants had found the banana. I considered them, swept them off the desk, rewrapped the banana’s three arms around itself. I could have thrown this banana in the trash. But wasn’t that closer to the ants? There, on the ground? Did a few ants on the browned end damn the whole thing? Couldn’t I still eat some of the banana? I still needed to swallow that Prozac in the morning. But I didn’t feel like eating the banana. It wasn’t my favorite flavor or texture or color. The potatoes had worked fine. The Prozac had gone down easy as butter. Another morning. Another evening. Twenty, maybe thirty sweet ants visiting the banana under my lamp’s yellow glow. Ants climbed the desk, scurried across the computer, headed in or out of the window screen. It wasn’t their fault they were there. They were ants, miniature gatherers. Highly sensitized, communal workers. They hadn’t held a million tiny knives to my throat, demanded I unpeel the banana. Given enough time and workers, they could have unpeeled this banana themselves. But they had not. No. This was my doing. I resolved to find an agreeable solution. Tools: One sheet of white paper, one red plastic cup, one pair human hands. I coaxed, gathered the ants on the paper, swept them into the cup. They didn’t want to go in that direction: Ants are single-minded. Still I shook, flicked. Blew down the ants climbing out of the cup. Cov- ered the cup with a book of poems. No, not poems, prose. Scooped ants, lifted prose, deposited. Herded these scuttlers. Brushed them from this book, from this paper, these computer keys. Black smears then dotted my white paper. It wasn’t my fault: to scoop one was to smoosh another. They wanted to go where they wanted to go; I wanted this banana in the event that I wanted this banana. We all deserved compassion for this unfortunate encounter. This unpredictable circumstance involving me, these ants, this banana, that barren room. I rushed the ones still in the cup out into the night grass, shook, flicked them out, my big fist rubbing against the cup’s sides. The next round garnered fewer ants, but fewer escapees, too. Again I brought them out, shook the red cup, reached my hand in. Only by this time, several had uncooperatively run up my sleeve. Oh! That terrible feeling: tiny, sticky legs tapping across me. I itched, rubbed the sleeve of my shirt. Let’s be honest. They wouldn’t be getting out alive, no matter these intentions. Still they scurried across the desk. Where else would they get? My bed? My shoes? My grocery bag of otherwise sealed food? A few were headed that direction. No, not there. I wouldn’t let them get there. I smooshed them with the toe of my shoe. I merengued their bodies across the floor. On the desk: a thumb, pointer, middle finger missile each one. A third a fourth a fifth a sixth. I scrape, smudge their bodies on the paper. Track them out the window. Hunt the drawers, the desk legs, the computer, books, bed until there are no more. Not one left. None at all in the subterranean room.
Only my breath.
Sorry, ants.
