The Acrobats
There is a living creature, an insect, called the Acrobat Ant. Before I had the pleasure of meeting one on a rainy October morning, I had never heard of them. While sipping my coffee, tuned into the Thursday Morning News, I spotted an ant crawling across my blue and white paisley comforter. He was double the length of an ordinary ant, skinnier, and seemed to have a kind of odd behavior, able to stretch his abdomen upwards, at least a third of his dark body raised up above the surface of the cotton fabric.
He looked me right in the eye. Was I imagining it? A freaking ant was looking me directly in the eye! In disbelief, a spurt of coffee flew from my mouth and sprayed on my robe. I despise anything creepy crawly - ant, spider, worm, beetle. I jumped up from the bed, put the coffee mug down, grabbed a tissue, pinched the tissue to capture it, and hurried to the bathroom. Flush!
What the hell was that thing? Bed bug? I cringed. I picked up my phone from the dresser and googled “long skinny ants.”
There was a photograph matching the bandit I had found in my bed. Acrobat Ant, the caption read.
A Wikipedia description followed.
Crematogaster, also known as the Acrobat Ant is an ecologically diverse genus of ants found worldwide. Members of this genus are also known as cocktail ants because of their habit of raising their abdomens when alarmed. They have also been known to bite when threatened.
An orthogonal thought crossed my mind. He had a kind of superpower for an ant, able to raise his abdomen, seeming to perform a back bend. I glanced down again at the bed. Crap. There were several of them roaming the comforter, and one on my white pillow case. Disgusting! They raised their heads when they noticed me. I was the danger, the monster who would end their life regardless of their super power. Guilty! I threw the box of tissues down on the bed. My hand trembled a little as I plucked each critter from the bed. I was creeped out. A wave of nausea hit me as I pulled back the comforter. More of them. Pluck, pluck, pluck. I shuddered and curled the tissue around each one, crumpled it tightly and dropped it in my ceramic trash bin. I lifted the sheets from the bed, pulled the cases from the pillows, and threw each item one by one on the wood floor. MORE! Dozens crawled around under the bed, around the dresser, near the side table.
I looked up at the skylight. Open, as usual. I couldn’t fall asleep without air flowing into the room. It cooled me; that, half an Ambien tab, and Alexa emitting the sound of ocean waves to drown out my husband’s snores, led me into dreamland each and every night. My husband often complained about my need for night air and the wide-open skylight but he gave up, knowing it was a dealbreaker for me.
The Acrobats must have come in through the damn skylight, a flood of them dropping from the rooftop through the opening onto our comforter and then dozens falling from the comforter to the floor. Frantic, I got down on my knees on the floor and chased down every one of the little suckers as they crept along, each with its ugly raised head, staring, arrogantly, daring me to attack. Once I teased my dog, Toffee out of the bedroom and shut the door behind me, I grabbed a can of Raid from under the sink in the bathroom. It became my best friend for the next thirty minutes. I sprayed everywhere, under the bed and side tables, behind the dresser, on the window sills, dabbing at several culprits with a paper towel, but not before they used their body lift superpower to intimidate me. How could a freaking ant do that?
I eyed an extraordinarily long Acrobat. You think you can outsmart me? Not a freaking chance! “Screw your superpower!” I shouted.
I picked up the pile of sheets, opened the bedroom door, shut it behind me and tromped downstairs to the garage to get the soiled load into the washing machine. My dog followed me. “Toffee, go potty,” I said, and led her outside to the garden away from the fog of poisonous ant spray. If I didn’t have such a fear of heights, I’d crawl out onto the rooftop from the upper deck, and spray all around the skylight. I’d need to wait for my husband to get home and coax him to become heroic before dinner.
My cell phone jingled. It was Kylie’s ring tone, my daughter who lived in Kentucky.
“Kylie,” I answered. “Everything okay. Little Christina alright?” Since the separation from her well-known attorney husband, I didn’t usually hear from Kylie unless I phoned her and if I’d leave a message when she didn’t answer, I wouldn’t get a return phone call for days.
“Mom,” she cried. “Stephen is on the rampage. He’s trying to get custody of Christina.”
“She’s not even three years old. Of course, she needs to be with you,” I said.
“He knows every single goddamn nuance of the law,” she moaned. “Geez, Mom, I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to swear like…”
“Don’t worry sweetheart,” I said.
She went on to list all the bad things about the man she had married within three months of meeting him, having been so taken with his unrelenting ambition and his magnetic presence. I listened to her complaints with surprising patience allowing her the space to get it all out, my Acrobat insect crisis on the back burner.
“The law, it’s his number one power,” she cried.
“Like his super power?” I said.
“Yes, his bloody superpower.”
“Kylie, how can I help?”
Moments of silence followed.
“Honey, why not bring Christina here for a visit. Have a break from Stephen in sunny California?”
“Mom, I can’t leave Kentucky. He’ll have me stopped. I lost my job last week.” I could hear her trying to catch her breath between tears.
“You lost your Accounting job? Oh no, that’s a lot to handle at once.”
“I-I have an interview on Tuesday, but…”
“And you’ll get the job. You will. Stay strong.”
“You said it, Mom. The law is Stephen’s super power.”
“Sweetheart, what seems to be his super power may actually be his Achilles heel. He’s too confidant, arrogant and he cheated on you for months.”
“He did! And probably for over two years, from what I found out. And took her to Hawaii for two weeks.”
“Tell the truth, everything that happened to you, all the details with your attorney, with the Judge, with everyone who has an impact on the custody decision. Most important, don’t roll over and just take it.”
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“For this conversation. For the years when I was a brat. For me always being over-confidant and nasty when you were just trying to help me. You told me to wait before marrying Stephan.”
It was hard for me to take a compliment even from my own daughter. I insisted that she keep me posted and let her go, then trotted back upstairs to the scene of the Acrobat disaster in my bedroom. When I opened the door, the smell of the bug spray was overwhelming. I turned and headed to the kitchen to grab the whole roll of paper towels, a bottle of Lysol and another full can of ant spray, placing all the items in a plastic tote. Up another staircase, I opened the door to the top deck of our 3-story house. I can do this, I said to myself. Face my fear of heights.
I used to dance ballet. I have excellent balance. Stepping over the wood railing and onto the black roof tiles, I forced myself to look out and then down. I quickly realized that I wasn’t scared like I thought I’d be. Not really. Kneeling down, I used the Lysol and paper towels to clean up the webs, some tree debris, bird poop, what might have been ant nests. I found cardboard fragments from some Fourth of July rocket and tossed the bits into the tote, then generously used the ant spray.
I stood up on the rooftop, tote in hand. A neighbor down below walking his dog waved up at me.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” I smiled down at him.
“You’re a brave one,” he said. “I thought you told me you were afraid of heights.”
“It’s my new super power,” I boasted. “I’m sort of like an Acrobat.”
He looked me right in the eye. Was I imagining it? A freaking ant was looking me directly in the eye! In disbelief, a spurt of coffee flew from my mouth and sprayed on my robe. I despise anything creepy crawly - ant, spider, worm, beetle. I jumped up from the bed, put the coffee mug down, grabbed a tissue, pinched the tissue to capture it, and hurried to the bathroom. Flush!
What the hell was that thing? Bed bug? I cringed. I picked up my phone from the dresser and googled “long skinny ants.”
There was a photograph matching the bandit I had found in my bed. Acrobat Ant, the caption read.
A Wikipedia description followed.
Crematogaster, also known as the Acrobat Ant is an ecologically diverse genus of ants found worldwide. Members of this genus are also known as cocktail ants because of their habit of raising their abdomens when alarmed. They have also been known to bite when threatened.
An orthogonal thought crossed my mind. He had a kind of superpower for an ant, able to raise his abdomen, seeming to perform a back bend. I glanced down again at the bed. Crap. There were several of them roaming the comforter, and one on my white pillow case. Disgusting! They raised their heads when they noticed me. I was the danger, the monster who would end their life regardless of their super power. Guilty! I threw the box of tissues down on the bed. My hand trembled a little as I plucked each critter from the bed. I was creeped out. A wave of nausea hit me as I pulled back the comforter. More of them. Pluck, pluck, pluck. I shuddered and curled the tissue around each one, crumpled it tightly and dropped it in my ceramic trash bin. I lifted the sheets from the bed, pulled the cases from the pillows, and threw each item one by one on the wood floor. MORE! Dozens crawled around under the bed, around the dresser, near the side table.
I looked up at the skylight. Open, as usual. I couldn’t fall asleep without air flowing into the room. It cooled me; that, half an Ambien tab, and Alexa emitting the sound of ocean waves to drown out my husband’s snores, led me into dreamland each and every night. My husband often complained about my need for night air and the wide-open skylight but he gave up, knowing it was a dealbreaker for me.
The Acrobats must have come in through the damn skylight, a flood of them dropping from the rooftop through the opening onto our comforter and then dozens falling from the comforter to the floor. Frantic, I got down on my knees on the floor and chased down every one of the little suckers as they crept along, each with its ugly raised head, staring, arrogantly, daring me to attack. Once I teased my dog, Toffee out of the bedroom and shut the door behind me, I grabbed a can of Raid from under the sink in the bathroom. It became my best friend for the next thirty minutes. I sprayed everywhere, under the bed and side tables, behind the dresser, on the window sills, dabbing at several culprits with a paper towel, but not before they used their body lift superpower to intimidate me. How could a freaking ant do that?
I eyed an extraordinarily long Acrobat. You think you can outsmart me? Not a freaking chance! “Screw your superpower!” I shouted.
I picked up the pile of sheets, opened the bedroom door, shut it behind me and tromped downstairs to the garage to get the soiled load into the washing machine. My dog followed me. “Toffee, go potty,” I said, and led her outside to the garden away from the fog of poisonous ant spray. If I didn’t have such a fear of heights, I’d crawl out onto the rooftop from the upper deck, and spray all around the skylight. I’d need to wait for my husband to get home and coax him to become heroic before dinner.
My cell phone jingled. It was Kylie’s ring tone, my daughter who lived in Kentucky.
“Kylie,” I answered. “Everything okay. Little Christina alright?” Since the separation from her well-known attorney husband, I didn’t usually hear from Kylie unless I phoned her and if I’d leave a message when she didn’t answer, I wouldn’t get a return phone call for days.
“Mom,” she cried. “Stephen is on the rampage. He’s trying to get custody of Christina.”
“She’s not even three years old. Of course, she needs to be with you,” I said.
“He knows every single goddamn nuance of the law,” she moaned. “Geez, Mom, I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to swear like…”
“Don’t worry sweetheart,” I said.
She went on to list all the bad things about the man she had married within three months of meeting him, having been so taken with his unrelenting ambition and his magnetic presence. I listened to her complaints with surprising patience allowing her the space to get it all out, my Acrobat insect crisis on the back burner.
“The law, it’s his number one power,” she cried.
“Like his super power?” I said.
“Yes, his bloody superpower.”
“Kylie, how can I help?”
Moments of silence followed.
“Honey, why not bring Christina here for a visit. Have a break from Stephen in sunny California?”
“Mom, I can’t leave Kentucky. He’ll have me stopped. I lost my job last week.” I could hear her trying to catch her breath between tears.
“You lost your Accounting job? Oh no, that’s a lot to handle at once.”
“I-I have an interview on Tuesday, but…”
“And you’ll get the job. You will. Stay strong.”
“You said it, Mom. The law is Stephen’s super power.”
“Sweetheart, what seems to be his super power may actually be his Achilles heel. He’s too confidant, arrogant and he cheated on you for months.”
“He did! And probably for over two years, from what I found out. And took her to Hawaii for two weeks.”
“Tell the truth, everything that happened to you, all the details with your attorney, with the Judge, with everyone who has an impact on the custody decision. Most important, don’t roll over and just take it.”
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“For this conversation. For the years when I was a brat. For me always being over-confidant and nasty when you were just trying to help me. You told me to wait before marrying Stephan.”
It was hard for me to take a compliment even from my own daughter. I insisted that she keep me posted and let her go, then trotted back upstairs to the scene of the Acrobat disaster in my bedroom. When I opened the door, the smell of the bug spray was overwhelming. I turned and headed to the kitchen to grab the whole roll of paper towels, a bottle of Lysol and another full can of ant spray, placing all the items in a plastic tote. Up another staircase, I opened the door to the top deck of our 3-story house. I can do this, I said to myself. Face my fear of heights.
I used to dance ballet. I have excellent balance. Stepping over the wood railing and onto the black roof tiles, I forced myself to look out and then down. I quickly realized that I wasn’t scared like I thought I’d be. Not really. Kneeling down, I used the Lysol and paper towels to clean up the webs, some tree debris, bird poop, what might have been ant nests. I found cardboard fragments from some Fourth of July rocket and tossed the bits into the tote, then generously used the ant spray.
I stood up on the rooftop, tote in hand. A neighbor down below walking his dog waved up at me.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” I smiled down at him.
“You’re a brave one,” he said. “I thought you told me you were afraid of heights.”
“It’s my new super power,” I boasted. “I’m sort of like an Acrobat.”
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Linda Gunther
Linda S. Gunther is the author of six suspense novels: Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, Dream Beach and Death Is A Great Disguiser. Her essays and short stories have also been featured in a variety of literary publications. www.lindasgunther.com
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