Work by Ryan Liffrig

The Ant

In an average house in suburban America a small boy's whining gets on his mother's nerves and she yells at him to go outside. So he wanders outside, in his socks, and he looks down at the ground and sees an ant hurrying through the grass. The boy gets down on his hands and knees so he can see better and notices that the ant is carrying a brownish piece of food almost as large as itself. What is it? A grass seed, a piece of another bug, or a breadcrumb that he dropped on the ground a few days ago? He keeps following the ant until it reaches one of those small anthills that are just a hole about the size of a BB across with a circle of fine dirt piled all around. The ant goes into the hole and comes out a few seconds later without the food. Why doesn't the ant just eat the food itself? The boy goes inside and asks his mother, "what do ants do with their food?" His mother tells him to go outside.