The Passing of Henry

For the Oppressed.

“Dad. You’ve gotta do this. Write the story.”

I looked at my son, quizzically.

“Why is this so important to you? Who’s gonna want to read a story about a stupid ant?”

“Henry was not stupid, and he isn’t the point! I didn’t tell you the whole thing! Anyway, I know it’s true.”

“So tell me. Help me to understand.”

A story about an ant that he dreamed about, and he just knows it’s true. I know where he gets that.

But about a half an hour later, I realized he was right. It is important, especially the way things are right now. Or anytime.

We hope you will read it.

The Passing of Henry

The world is not at all what it seems, to we virtually senseless humans. String theory, quanta, quarks and the once-proposed “ether” don't even begin to cover it. The revelation that matter and energy might actually be interchangeable was but the first of many primary realizations, and none of the others have come to humans yet living. For the place we live is a flexible and resilient but indestructible latticework, a structure that is not a structure, immense and yet, infinitesimally small. Ordinary people such as we, smugly secure in our safe and sane mental and emotional constructs, are generally not capable of grasping the true nature of reality, let alone its interwoven functionalities. And in a fundamental way, everything within it is connected. The strange ways in which they are connected are just as difficult to fathom.

That interconnected nature was precisely the means and the mechanism, if you will, that permitted the saga of Henry to be revealed in its entirety, to a young college man as he slept inside his apartment. His lips opened and closed with the rhythm of his relaxed breathing, and his eyes danced behind closed eyelids.

***********

Henry was alone, and he very much felt that way. In a very fundamental and isolating manner, he existed only unto himself. At last, he stood tentatively on the precipice of that existence, staring to the farthest physical reaches of a vast, deep concrete chasm that extended before him.

At this point in his life, Henry believed he had already experienced the single greatest letdown he ever would. It was a stumbling realization that his peers were comparatively mindless, unaware of the things around them. But, he was about to experience the complete loss of all of them, which of course was far worse, and the event would prove to be too much for him.

I, as a mere event recorder, do not claim to understand Henry’s anomalous being. I have been asked to generate a written account, a record of Henry's story. And thus, his brief saga begins. I must ask the reader to honor the memory and existence of Henry, an intelligent creature, with an opening of the mind to all possibilities, otherwise, the story of his abbreviated existence will not be communicated.

While the rest of his kind simply ran around acting and reacting in instinctive ways, doing exactly what they were born to do, Henry saw and understood the obvious futility of all of it. The thousands of his fellows in the colony seemed to have no concept of the lack of permanence of what they were building, through all of their hard work. In Henry's view, in fact, the sum total of the colony's work was nothing more than a series of pipes and passages within the interior concrete block wall of an apartment building, which they all entered through a large crack in the wall. The vast chasm beyond which Henry was staring was the huge basement wherein the colony was located.

And as he stood near the top of the wall, all that he had known as his home and origin was about to be destroyed.

Human maintenance workmen were entering from the freight elevator, pushing a wheelbarrow that had been loaded with various tools; a trowel, a shovel, a mortar-shaping tool and a bag of premixed mortar cement. Soon they had prepared the cement in the wheelbarrow and were conversing as they methodically worked their way around the big room, closing cracks in the wall. Shortly the crew reached the point directly beneath Henry, who gasped as they prepared to seal off his relatives, dooming them all to death. “Hey Harry,” the foreman barked, “Run out to the truck and get the insect bomb from the cab. There's ants in this one. If we don't treat the crack, they'll turn up somewheres else.”

Henry watched helplessly as the human stalked out to get the insecticide.

Throughout his short life, he had felt he was alone in the world. It wasn't the shortcomings of the world, but those of his own existence. What was the point in living a life of emotional solitude? But now, every individual he'd ever known would be gone. How silly, how stupid he had been to take them all for granted, regardless of their limited functions and perception! Although he hadn't understood a word of the language the humans had spoken, he could easily see what was going on, and he knew what was about to happen. At that moment, he decided. He would end his own life. He would rejoin his colony and would perish with them. He scrambled for the portal to the colony.

But alas, the ceiling of the basement was very high to allow space for the heating plant, the plumbing, and electrical panels that hummed on the wall, and it took more than a minute for Henry to descend to the colony portal, which was close to the basement floor. In that space of time, Harry had returned with the insecticide and had foamed it into the wide crack, just before his co-worker slapped cement behind it.

Henry ran frantically around the repair, but he knew there was no point. They were gone, all gone! And now, he was truly alone.

The anomalous intelligence with which Henry had burst into the world now became his greatest weight, like an anvil attached to a cat. He stopped and stood as depression flooded through him, filling his consciousness and driving him nearly to madness. He began the long trek back to the top of the wall, resolving to leave this place behind forever. He would find another means to end this awful existence. In the lore of humans, anomalous individuals have been given names to define their special natures. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man. Henry had just become, Suicidal Ant.

**********

Regaining the ceiling of the big basement, Henry spun about on his six legs and cast a long look backward. The crew of humans had finished their methodical patching and had donned filtered black respirators. Now they would apply sealer to the concrete walls, a nasty mix of petroleum distillates and resins. A large and powerful blower roared, carrying fumes to the outdoors. Henry the Suicidal Ant grimaced in classic ant style, and headed for a window frame. It was much too late for the humans to kill him that way. The only freedoms he desired were death, and to choose its manner of arrival.

Henry was certain of his intent, and determined to put an end to it all.

As he sought and found a small space next to the frame that allowed him to leave the building, he thought about how he might do it. Likely a fall from a great height was the surest way to go. Squirming his way through the tiny space to the outdoors, the first thing he laid eyes upon was a mighty red oak tree. It was more than three stories in height and perfectly shaped. As it was quite late in August, the weather was beautiful and the sun was high in the sky. Henry looked briefly through glazed eyes at the splendor of nature. Hm. Scarcely mattered. What had there ever been out here for him?

He worked his way through a forest of grasses to the big tree and began the long ascent over bark and branch, to the very extreme top. When he reached it, he did not hesitate, even for a split second. He leaped.

Henry's antennae flexed, buffeted by the wind. He spread all six of his legs to embrace death. It would all be over soon. He grimaced a final ant grimace, watching the bark of the huge tree trunk flash by as his little ant body approached terminal velocity.

Suddenly, a gentle western breeze whiffed Henry to one side, slowing his descent. He whirled and spun, then began to tumble wildly, end over end. As at last he reached the surface of the earth, his thorax was intercepted by a long blade of emerald-green grass. It bowed slightly, but not very much, and his robust exoskeleton didn't mind at all when he flipped through the air on a lilting rebound and landed among the gentle tendrils of moss-covered ground, between the grasses.

“Whaatt??”

Henry's effort at suicide had been foiled. The huge amount of energy he had expended and the resultant complete failure made him quite angry, and he dug at the ground like a big dog, pawing the earth with all of his feet. This would never do! At a dead run, he headed back toward the wall of the big apartment building from which he had come. Crossing the sidewalk and reaching the concrete foundation, he raced to the little window where he had exited earlier. He peered inside.

The workmen had just finished up and were removing the blower from the opening to the outside stairwell. All of them had removed their respirators, because the air had cleared.

“Damn!” Henry looked up. The apartment wall before him rose high into a blue sky, all of seven stories of it. It was much taller than the big red oak tree, and the impenetrable concrete of the sidewalk awaited at the end of the drop. Determined, he again began his ascent, climbing over and around the bricks, one by one.

Nearly an hour of hard expended effort had passed, and Henry had at last reached the top. He clambered around the protective metal rim at the edge of the huge flat roof and stood for a moment, gazing out across the scenery. Beyond the buildings and trees lay a pastoral scene, with green meadows and trees, and a stream. “Nice view,” he thought to himself. Then, without further hesitation, he jumped.

At that very moment, that accursed western wind struck again, stiffer this time, boosting him skyward and backward so that he landed unceremoniously on the flat, tarred roof. What was it going to take?

A hungry sparrow landed on the edge of the roof, and Henry sprinted right for it. “Hey!” he shouted, in his tiny ant voice, in his tiny ant language. “Eat me!!” But the sparrow didn't hear him, and didn't notice. She had her eye on a much larger insect that was flying crazily in circles nearby. Henry would have jumped right in front of the sparrow, but before he could get to her she flitted off to capture a truly worthwhile morsel. Undaunted, Henry just waited until the wind had died down. Again, he leaped. This time, it would be very different. He believed it, felt it in his little ant heart.

The western breeze hit him yet again, but this time, it slammed into the wall and was diverted downward, and it added to his earthward speed. He passed terminal velocity with the extra shove of the wind behind him, and he smiled triumphantly as the sidewalk sped toward him. Henry nosed downward to hit the concrete headfirst, his legs laid back snugly against his sides.

‘Poonk.’

Henry impacted the concrete exactly as planned. But his little antenna had been pushed back by the wind and hadn't even bent. He'd struck the concrete firmly, so why hadn't it hurt? He stood up and lifted each of his legs one at a time, to see if any had at least been broken. None had.

“Aw, crap!!”

Henry collapsed spread-eagled on the sidewalk, his abdomen against the rough surface, and he thought. Of course, he could simply starve himself to death. Otherwise, apparently, nothing would end this horrible existence.

Then, Henry's attention was drawn to something moving and large, headed his way. An entire kindergarten class was coming, tramping along on the sidewalk. Forty-five children and two monstrous adults were coming right toward him. At last! Surely one of them would step on him, and that would be that. Henry rolled over on his back and waited.

As the children approached, little Tommy, who'd been watching his own moving feet with interest, spotted Henry. “Hey, look!” he exclaimed to the other children, “There's an ant!”

The children gathered 'round, staring down at the little ant with all six of his feet in the air. “He's dead,” a little girl proclaimed. The children resumed their passage, each one stepping around the little suicidal ant.

Henry couldn't believe it! He jumped up and began running around among the children, but, alas, each step that was taken came down on the concrete wherever he wasn't. Run, run, run! Step, step, step. Over and over, Henry's body was missed, and at last, he stood and watched as the children gradually moved away, his antennae drooping in disappointment. It just hadn't been a good day to die. Not at all.

Some relatively short distance away, Henry noticed cars out on the street, zipping past. These were much larger and had to be even heavier than a human. And, there were plenty of them. At long last. Just one more long walk, and that would be that, finally. He set out for the street.

It had been a trying day thus far and it wasn't over yet. Henry certainly wanted it to be. The traffic wasn't as heavy now, but a big truck was indeed coming. He hurried over the edge of the curb and ran into the street, positioning himself in the center of the path of an oncoming front tire. As the roaring tire approached, Henry raised his front legs high in the air above himself in anticipation. Vroom! Vroom! The tires, both front and rear, passed directly over his body. But his position on the pavement had been directly between the treads, and there he remained, ruffled by the wind the passing tire had generated, but untouched.

“Unbelievable,” thought Henry

So he ambled on across the street, no longer caring, quite so much. Surely at least one of the monstrous vehicles would end his existence. Cars sped overhead, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Henry remained un-squashed as he wandered aimlessly about on the street. Then, he realized the big lot on the other side of the street had people in it, and these were much larger than the kindergarten children he had seen earlier. And quite often, not just their feet but their entire bodies were striking the ground. What crazy activity was this?

It was a junior varsity football team, getting in some preseason practice. Henry wearily climbed the curb and kept going, moving around thousands of individual clumps of grass, until he had reached the action. Each time the young men lined up and leaped forward, they crashed into one another, shaking the ground as their bodies slammed against the turf. And each time, Henry was somewhere else. Once, one of the big boys had actually landed directly on top of him, but at that moment, he had just tumbled into an impression left by a football-cleat, and he still remained untouched. Incredulous, he wandered on, across the football practice field and into a neighboring yard.

Henry had traveled quite far, in ant terms. The strength and endurance of ants relative to their size is seldom noted, but it is gargantuan. They can carry objects larger and heavier than themselves and can move at breakneck speeds, covering great distances on very little energy. But Henry was at last beginning to seriously tire, and his ant body was complaining about the lack of moisture, and of nourishment. Although his mind was telling him to ignore it, the rest of him just plain disagreed.

As he entered the neighboring yard, he sensed tiny droplets of water in the air. He moved closer to the source. A human homeowner was at curbside, washing his car. Henry moved in a bit closer, hoping to take in some moisture to relieve his nagging thirst. Without realizing it, however, he got a little too close.

The powerful, sweeping stream from a garden hose nozzle blasted Henry from the edge of the curb. His sturdy ant body was suddenly exposed to more force that it had resisted at the end of the fall from the apartment building. He thought he was being torn apart, nevertheless he instinctively tried to scurry to safety. It was no use. The water now moving beneath him was far too swift and much too deep. In a flash, Henry was swept into a storm drain.

It was somewhere within this darkened torrential environment that Henry's thinking was finally altered. The rushing water that had carried him into the storm sewer quickly joined a much greater rush of water that had come from blocks away, where human workmen were flushing fire hydrants. Henry was dashed against the rough culvert walls, swept into and over waterfalls, the water foaming and roiling in the blackness. And while Henry might have simply laid back and allowed himself to be drowned, he discovered that his instinctive will to live was still present. He scrambled, he swam, he turned this way and that to absorb the force of impacts with his back rather than his legs, he struggled and worked to stay alive. At last, just as he had given up and had begun to prepare himself for his actual death, Henry saw the brilliance of daylight overhead, and the water slowed from thundering torrent to easy meander.

Gratefully, Henry clambered onto a bobbing piece of blackened, rotted wood that bumped into him as he floated into the warmer water of the river.

Now Henry was a passenger, carried by the current of the much larger body of water. His harrowing experience had indeed changed his perspective. He observed the grandeur of nature all about as he drifted along; birds flitted, bees buzzed by, dragonflies played along the shore at the mouth of an intersecting creek. Fish splashed happily as they fed in the waters around him, and white clouds drifted lazily in a clear blue sky. That was when it struck him. It wasn't so much that his gift of greater intelligence was anomalous. Life itself was anomalous. Although he'd marveled at the complexity of the world, he really hadn't applied his understanding to his immediate surroundings. The majesty of the universe is present at every level, including the one he occupied. It was not to be taken for granted, but to be lived, every moment of it that one might be allowed.

Henry's bit of floating wood bumped against the riverbank beneath long blades of overhanging grass, and he scrambled at last to safety. Although tired, he had rested for a while as a passenger, and now he would set out in search of food, perhaps even companionship.

Climbing a high bank, he entered the yard and garden of Lydia, an elderly woman who was out pruning her front hedge. At one time she had prized her roses and had regularly dusted them for insects, but lately had been letting it go. Lydia already knew how precious was life, and she also knew she was slowing down. She was just doing what she could.

Henry noticed a stream of ants moving up and down along the stem of a rose bush, and knew there had to be food up there somewhere. He was a bit larger than were they, but they didn't seem to mind his appearance. The ants were attending their herd of aphids, taking nourishment from the dew they exuded from their bodies. Henry watched and then he tried it. It was wonderful, like nothing he had ever tasted. Maybe there was a home for him here, too.

From the top of the rose bush, Henry looked about. Just to the north of the house was a meadow, and in it were many black and white Holstein cows. It was the family farm still operated by Lydia's son, Harold. Peering downward between the leaves, Henry saw the stream of ants was making its way through the rose garden toward the meadow. Of course. An ant colony would strive to locate where it wouldn't likely be disturbed. He climbed down and followed the others to where he hoped he would find his new home.

On the way, Henry met and befriended a worker ant. Workers are all infertile females, and as they moved along the path, she looked him over, admiringly. “Queenie will want to meet a big strong guy like you,” she remarked. Henry felt himself trembling with anticipation. Surely this was the place he needed to be, at this point in his life. It was an old story that has been repeated for so many of us, throughout the ages. Realization, hope, the promise of purpose, the possibility of belonging. Henry exuded the closest thing possible to a happy ant sigh.

As they entered the meadow, Henry broke off from the flow of ants to climb a large cow-pie that had been deposited there. It looked like an excellent vantage point, its surface hardened-over and brown, as cow-pies quickly become. He was right. It was a great place to scramble onto for a look-about; but, not really at that moment. Cow number forty-three of Harold's herd, Bessy, was just about to step down on that particular pie.

The exoskeleton of an ant is no match for the great weight of a cow, even though distributed on four hooves, even with a cushion of three inches of soft dung beneath it. At least, it was quick, and Henry never saw it coming.

Says the storyteller, and not the recorder:

“The resiliency of the universe, a bit of its unchanging character, had returned Henry's intentions to his own reality just as surely as he had sent them out. Once set in motion, such things can be difficult to reverse. It is a phenomenon that affects all creatures, including humans, individually and as groups, or as teams, millions of times worldwide, every day. For all things are not determined by chance, talent or hard work. Those things we desperately desire and also the things we secretly fear, these are the most likely to become our own. It's helpful to know it, as long as it is carefully used to our advantage.

We may therefore conclude, we will do well to fear very little and to choose our goals with the greatest of care.”

To the athletes, the fighters, the oppressed: Do you believe you can win? Do you truly believe it? Then you can.

If you don’t, even secretly, then believe me, you won’t.

This has always been so.

Thus Henry, through the lucid dreaming of his human counterpart, lives on through his story and leaves behind his legacy: a gift of illumination for the human race.

May his illumination be seen again and again, and may his fate be heeded, that ours might be different.

***********

copyright 2023 Benjamin Trayne