The Ant

Date: 11/24/2016

By TDHOOKE

I was sitting at a table with a couple of friends talking with them. A lost ant scurried across the table with no rhyme or reason. "Must be a scout," I thought to myself. My fingers slowly traced the trail of the ant and dragged slowly across the table behind him. From the ant's perspective, it was the fastest and biggest finger there ever was. The ant disappeared under the edge of the table. As my finger crossed into uncharted territory, a sudden jolt of pain flashed through my finger and up my arm. When I pulled my hand up, a spider greeted me; it sat atop the blood that encompassed the tip of my finger and rapidly coursed down to fill the crevices in my hand like rainwater into the imperfections of a sidewalk. It's two long, menacing fangs were lodged deep into my skin; it wasn't until I had someone with smaller fingers at the table pull them out that I realized just how deep they penetrated. The spider jumped from the pinnacle of my hand with a silky, shiny bungee cord and slowly rappelled from my arm to the table below, an acrobatic act that would put any Olympian to shame. It resumed its position under the table, not knowing how long until it would next taste blood but not caring. The spider lived for the sensational taste of its next victim, and time was certainly of no object in its quest to satiate its predatory cravings.