I have nothing against MLK

Last week I had to read Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from a Birmingham jail and try to draw connections to Thoreau, the founding fathers, etc. in the vein of the American outlaw.  Not difficult at all once you break down whatever documents you're studying.  The problem laid within the deed of reading the letter; definitely the longest letter I've ever had to read but in no way, shape, or form a difficult read... I actually got through the first few paragraphs pretty quickly.  No, my issue is that I am an immature asshole sadist.

Take note that the setting of this scene is the Wesley College "library", I use quotation marks only because it's treated like a shithole animal house by the idiots who attend the school.  I digress.  About a fifth of the way through the letter I noticed from the corner of my eye, an ant marching its ass up the window sill at a 90 degree angle.  I am gazing at this guy's progress with a childlike innocence that comes second only to Tod before Copper had to start hunting him in The Fox and the Hound.  I am absolutely entranced by the movement of this fucking ant, so much that I'm starting to get jealous.  Reality kicks in and I'm still an overworked college kid who has to read way to much this semester.

That's when I noticed the spiderwebs at the bottom of the window sill.

Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck.  I slowly pull a pen from my backpack, eyes locked on my tiny adversary, steadily marching his punic trek.  Fuck.  I slllooooowwwwlllllyyyyy move the pen to the front of the ant.  And knock it off it's fucking feet.  Fuck.  I watch in slow motion as the ant frantically spins into a downward spiral of an apocalyptic ending.  My stomach churns.  I am the wretch.  Fuck.  The ant takes a header into the entanglement and kicks all six of its appendages in such a frenzied manner, that I begin to regret ever becoming a product of this American environment filled with sex and violence.  Fuck.  Tears fill my eyes...

I need to fix this.  I must make this right.

I immediately start hacking away at the web only to realize that I'll never use this pen again because spider webs are gross as fuck.  I eventually beat the any out of the mess but didn't realize that it is now stuck in a penny-sized wad of spider gunk.  I swear I can hear the screams of this little guy and each one tears titanic pieces of moral fiber away from my soul.  At this point I brought in another pen that I will never ever use again and am surgically separating the fuck out of this mess I've created and the ant is only making shit worse by spazzing out.  I debate yelling at it to stop, but quickly dimissed the thought.  No yelling in the library.  There's not much I can do at this point, most of the web are gone but the ant is still covered in the webs and moving around at a solid pace.  He even starts doing his 90 degree angle thing up the window again buts ends up deciding against it and just wanders around on the sill for a bit.  I breathe a sigh of relief and get back to Marty's letter, which pales in comparison to the heroic rescue I just staged.  Again, like a stupid child, I become sidetracked and check on my new best friend only to find that he COMPLETELY FUCKING VANISHED!  I check the upper half of the window and it's frame, I scour the wall and the floor, completely baffled by this little dude's disappearance.  I'm not sure if I should be happy or upset about this, after its life changing experience that we shared it just dips out?  I direct my gaze out the window and what I see on the other side of the sill is so much more powerful to me than this letter, this course, and this entire college.  The ant is on its hind legs, face pointed towards the sun, eerily similar to Andy Dufresne in Shawshank.  I threw up a fist for ant power and quietly continued my reading. 

Another three minutes went by and I started playing the Sims on my Facebook.  The reading didn't get done.


Distractedly,

JoeyG