I just found an ant – one of the very big ones – trapped in the refrigerator running around frantically, from the cold (I’m guessing). And I felt so badly for it that I gently delivered it onto the kitchen floor where it continued to act crazy, heading for the edge of the cabinet under the sink. But that’s where my husband has spread a thin line of diatomaceous earth for getting rid of ants. The stuff is a powder that’s nontoxic for people, but cuts up some insects. To an ant, it’s like walking across, or eating, broken glass.
But, I just couldn’t bear the little guy having to go through that type of long, drawn-out, lacerating death either, so I went to kill him quickly, but I didn’t use the right thing. The right thing being a good stiff piece of cardboard backed by a solid part of the hand so the insect gets squashed evenly and all at once. Instead, I used a paper towel, but I didn’t get him all so he was maimed for a second (in our time) until I got another wack at him. Still, even after my second hit, a tiny part of him was still wiggling when I looked to make sure he was dead. So a third press was required.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably like me: an ultra-sensitive somebody who’s missing the normal, protective layer that shields most people from feeling too much.
Right or wrong, I sometimes feel more for animals than I do for humans.
I know that’s because animals can’t talk: can’t ask for help. I know it’s because they’re totally vulnerable like I was as a small kid in a good home that had its real painful parts. I know that’s why I have this sensitivity: I know what it’s like to be helpless.
So, there are two things I’m thinking about this ant killing.
Or three. Or more.
First of all, just so you know: I do quite quickly get over my pain at the ant having suffered. It’s not like it’s going to kill me all day. But, still, it tortures me for a short while. I scream “Go to God you little thing. Go to God.” (Which is to say, go to whatever’s good beyond here.)
If that ant was a human, it would have been a quick death. Very very swift. Which is the best way to go in my book.
But it seems to me that different creatures must have different experiences of time. They absolutely have different experiences of space: To an ant, I must be as big as the empire state building (but terrifyingly alive — not something stationary they could crawl up the side of like Leonardo did in Inception).
No: what’s small to me is the known universe to an ant. My back yard is probably the world to them.
So, if their space scale is different, they must perceive time differently, too. Because time and space somehow go together, according to Einstein and my own psychedelic and other experiences. If an ant’s average life span is a year, then the few seconds it took me to kill him must have felt like a month. Like a long, slow bombing from a massive Godzilla.
This is what tortures me. No matter how quickly and well I come in for the kill, it’s a drawn out suffering panic for the little guy: a slow darkening of the sky, as the paper descends over him. He’s terrorized and attempts to escape but there’s no way out. I’m everywhere – the darkening — and he’s got no place to hide.
Horrible, horrible.
A slow squishing, but only partially, like a person pinned in a car. With another cloud descending. And no way to call for help.
Or, maybe not. Maybe his brain got destroyed before the second hit and although his body was squirming, his dead brain couldn’t register it. (Consciousness, of course, being the receiver of all suffering. Right?)
When I started writing this an hour ago, I was hurting. Now I feel better.
