DRUNK ANTS - Flash Fiction Story by Mary Healy Hartill

 

DRUNK ANTS

Flash Fiction Story

by

Mary Healy Hartill

It was a warm summer afternoon and I was watching drunk ants. 

My neighbors watched me from across the street from their porch.

I sat cross-legged in the spiky grass watching a dance line of ants. They emerged from the grass toward the patch of dandelions in my lawn. They were small ants and I’m not sure what they were looking for but they found it in the dandelions.

They staggered up the stems and wandered around the top of the dandelion, looking for all the world like drunk sailors.

One would fall off the top and another would replace it.

I was delighted. I had never seen ants behave this way before, like tiny drunks sipping off a nectar of dandelion wine.

I’m sure my neighbors wondered what I was doing, an adult woman, sitting in the lawn, staring down at, what exactly?

I was laughing and smiling. My neighbors were not.

I carry that memory with me like a golden gem to warm me when my days are cloudy.

Mary Healy Hartill is a 71 year old mother/ grandmother who  just happens to play flute, write, and crochet. She is also teammate to service dog Jackie.