Cows vs. Ants

“Did this motherfucker just fart on my pinky finger” I wanted to say out loud but the scream cowered in my head. No one flinched, but the oxygen stopped as the smell of the obvious vibration of foul heat arrested the air. You couldn’t ignore a grown man with lactose problems. But no one spoke a word. They just guarded their borrowed place in the overly crowded metro, turned the music up on their headphones and refused to make eye contact. The red line was having problems again. The last problem killed some people. I figured I let the fart go.

Living in the “protest” city or DC, it seems that mornings are the worse. Everybody is always in such a rush or confused. The busiest metro stop in DC has to be the red line, Gallery of fools place or Gallery Place. It’s where all the major metro lines exchange its people. Spit out and spat on, they move like fireflies slamming against a lonely nightlight just because. Getting off trains, getting on trains, waiting for a train, to go only god knows where. Nobody cares. It seems everybody got to be somewhere important or not. I remember when I didn’t have a job-- and I would be coming from some club or one night stand probably smelling of liquor and bathless weeks -- and I would greet the morning ants and cows with dark sunshades and wonder if they pitied a mid twenty something year old man with no place to go but bed at 8 in the morning. Now, I am an ant. I don’t notice anything but strange farts and my metro stop.

The metro traffic of blah blah humanity is like cows and ants. The slow moving or the mass of electricity. Lights on or lights off. Everybody always seem to be rushing, get out of my way rushing or just in the way. I used to love being in the way.

The cows. The slow moving cows, confused. They graze. They seem to always be in the way of the rushing ants. The cows, often tourists or someone directionless. Cows in general seem to be on a never ending vacation or drunk. Probably why they are so easy to tip over or kill and make great burgers. The meat seems lazy. In the rush of life, cows just get pushed out the way. The stampede pushes them where it wants. And then they just start running, scared shitless from the barking of someone who thinks he or she is more important.

I like the part when the metro door opens and everyone rushes to the escalator. And then there is the swipe of the metro card for exit. No one likes the person who messes up the flow. The directionless. It’s always the cow who gets to the swipe and sometimes just looks at the machine, confused. The world suddenly stops. Traffic jam. The stampede becomes aware of itself and we are no longer-- but I who is a hour late for work-- and I who is getting a divorce-- and I who farted on that train.

I don’t mind the jam, it gives me time to think. I can finally slow down. Work can wait another second.

And then there are the ants. As a kid, I liked watching ants cuz they are also seem as if they’re rushing towards something life threatening. I’ve never witness an ant just chilling. I’ve never seen an ant on vacation. They seem to know direction. Get food and protect the queen. It was so simple.

I feel as if I am an ant. Alarm clock goes off and I wake up, rush, get dressed, watch the clock, out the house, make it to the metro, get on train, stand, get off train, work, clock out, back on train, and suddenly I am home until the alarm clock goes off again. In the morning with my uniform on: blazer, shirt, tie and dress pants, I feel as if I look like I do something important. I don’t. I pretend and hope no one finds out. I am on corporate welfare.

I feel as if all those who look like me, in the same uniform look as if we are rushing towards something. Just like ants. It’s simple. Work. Get food. Feed the Queen. Hide bad habits. But who the fuck is the Queen. And what has she done for me lately.

I barely see the world in my rush of instinctual importance until I stumbled into the cows. I was once a cow. Reincarnation is a prankster.

The cows, they just sit there, like they do when cars pass them on highways in the country. They don’t notice the rushing. Cows don’t even say raise their head to say hello. The cows, tourists, directionless. The alarm clocks goes off again. I rush. I am an ant now, dreaming about cows. I need a vacation or a burger.