Ants

CONTENT WARNING: THE ENDING MIGHT BE A LITTLE DISTURBING!!!

Rebanto sat cross-legged, leaning against the playground slide, keenly watching an ant crawl up his feet. Dressed in a white T-shirt that was too big for him, and shorts that were too tight, Rebanto tried his best to shake away the discomfort of his misfitting clothes, and not move. He was too afraid of disturbing the ant’s path. The ant looked so happy and peaceful, dancing up his legs, tracing the edges of a tiny scar. In school, he had learned that ants have an ‘egg-so-skeleton’ that made them really strong, but Rebanto was strong too. If Rebanto could have scars on his leg, could the ant also have scars? The ant moved along, behind his kneecap, and Rebanto carefully lifted his legs up. With his tongue stuck out and his eyes squinted, he continued to gleefully watch the ant as a cheerful spectator.

“Hi,” Aryan’s voice surprised Rebanto. Rebanto carefully dropped his lifted leg back into the sandy pit surrounding the playground slide. He twisted his head to the right and found Aryan’s pimpled face leering back. Though Aryan was only two years older than Rebanto, he knew everything. Aryan knew how the world worked. He knew there were seventeen planets in the solar system, and that nine of them were hidden because they were made of chocolate. He knew that the moon was actually a giant guava that the government had planted in the sky. He knew that on Sunday afternoons like this, the playground in the park next to their apartment building was always empty. Who else in their right mind would chance a hot Indian afternoon as playtime? Turns out that the answer came in the form of two, inseparable boys – one eight and the other ten.

Kneeling beside Rebanto, Aryan was clutching his red cap to wade off the sun and using the corner of his green T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his eyebrows. “Hi,” Rebanto whispered, pointing at the ant that was now crawling up his thigh. “Don’t disturb it.” Aryan in response did what he always did – disobey Rebanto. He thumped Rebanto’s thighs. For an odd moment there, an eight-year-old felt awkward; Aryan’s lingering hand seemed to be tracing Rebanto’s thighs rather than the ant’s path. “I’ll just flick it,” Aryan said, laughing as he squeezed the tiny ant between his two fingers and hurled it away to Rebanto’s disdain.

Rebanto sprang to his feet and chased after Aryan as the two boys began freely running. Just like the ant that had traced Rebanto’s leg, the boys were now tracing all corners of the tiny, empty playground. They ran past the two swings with chains so rusty that as the wind slowly nudged it along, they croaked like out-of-tune violins. They ran atop the small, rocky boulders scattered all over the park without much thought. They ran their hands through the perimeter flanking the park. When they were finally tired and out of breath, they sat down near a small pond in one corner of the park. They threw away their shoes and dropped their legs into the pond.

“What’s next?” Rebanto asked, still out of breath.

“Let’s play a game,” Aryan said, wrapping his arms around Rebanto’s shoulders.

“What game?” Rebanto asked, clapping his hands.

“Each of us takes turn hiding a rock and then the other person has to find it. The person hiding the rock shouts out ‘warmer’ if the person finding the rock gets closer to it. Otherwise, he yells ‘colder’.”

“It’s too confusing,” Rebanto complained.

“Okay, okay. You go first and then you’ll understand how to play!” Aryan said, laughing. The boys got up and put their muddy feet back into their shoes. Aryan picked up a rock from the ground and wrapped it with a leaf to mark it. “Now, I’ll close my eyes while you hide the rock,” Aryan said as he shut his eyes. Rebanto looked around for the perfect spot to hide it.

Once he found the spot, Rebanto said, “I am ready.”

Aryan opened his eyes, mechanically scanning for the rock. “Now if I get closer to the rock, tell me I am getting warmer. If I’m going away from it, tell me I am getting colder,” Aryan said.

“I think you are getting warmer,” Rebanto said, jumping as Aryan walked towards the playground slide. Aryan climbed up the slide and triumphantly held the rock in his hand. “You cheated!” Rebanto screamed, refusing to admit defeat. How could Aryan have found the rock so easily? Rebanto had taken five minutes to find a spot in which to hide the rock. Aryan had found it in a single minute!

“I didn’t,” Aryan retaliated calmly. Rebanto humphed, throwing back his head. When he had first met Aryan, he remembered Aryan mentioning that friends never lie and tell each other every secret. That was exactly how Rebanto knew that Aryan was an alien traversing through the cosmos. And that is how Aryan knew that Rebanto’s scars were from a biking accident he’d been in last year. Of course, Rebanto knew that Aryan wouldn’t lie now. They were forbidden from lying to each other. They were best friends!

“Your turn!” Aryan said. “Close your eyes.”

Rebanto closed his eyes, focusing hard on trying to discern Aryan’s footsteps. Since the playground was empty, Rebanto knew that if he tried hard enough, he would know where Aryan hid the rock. But he didn’t hear any footsteps, and that’s when Rebanto remembered that Aryan was a really good swimmer. They had learnt swimming together, just like everything else. It would be very hard to hear Aryan’s movement at all. He was very sneaky.

“Open your eyes,” Aryan said after a long pause. Rebanto looked around and started inching closer towards a small crevice in the wall. “Colder,” Aryan said. That seemed like the other obvious spot apart from the slide. The park was not really big enough to have many hiding spots. Rebanto moved towards the pond. “Colder,” Aryan said, dancing along to a tune in his head. Rebanto ran over to the swings. “Colder,” Aryan said, chuckling. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s near me.”

“I didn’t know that the rules allowed for that,” Rebanto said, walking towards Aryan. It had to be under Aryan’s cap, right? Rebanto pulled away Aryan’s cap, and though Aryan’s hair was messy and dirty, there were no traces of any kind of rocks to be found. “Is it in your pockets?” Rebanto asked and Aryan shook his head, pulling his pockets out as proof. “Is it under your shoe?” Rebanto said and Aryan lifted his foot. The rock was not there. Was Aryan also a magician?

Rebanto looked around, puzzled. The playground was empty. “Where is it?” he asked, gulping in exhaustion, facing away from Aryan. And that’s when he heard it: the sound of something being unzipped, its screeching sound piercing Rebanto’s head like an anguished wail. Rebanto’s heart beast fast. Large blotches of sweat began ebbing through his body like the flow of a river. Rebanto wasn’t sure how he felt, but he knew he did not want to turn. Aryan’s voice came crawling back, “It is ok.” Rebanto hesitantly turned around. He looked down. And he found the stone. That wasn’t the only thing hiding in Aryan’s underwear. Apart from his own, Rebanto had never seen anyone else’s penis before.

“Touch it,” Aryan’s said, his voice cold and distant – more alien than ever. “You trust me, right?” Aryan asked. “Everybody has a penis! There’s nothing wrong with touching it!” Rebanto’s hand shivered forward as he retrieved the stone and the leaf, touching Aryan’s penis in the process. “Now I get to touch yours too!” Aryan yelled out, not waiting for Rebanto and his hand already clutching Rebanto’s zip. Rebanto reluctantly pulled his shorts down and felt Aryan’s hand linger there, just like it had on Rebanto’s thighs earlier in the day.

And though Aryan’s hand lingered only for ten seconds, Rebanto felt time stretched out before him. Aryan was his best friend. He had to know what he was doing. If Rebanto was having a funny feeling in his stomach, that was only because Rebanto was a coward, and not brave enough like Aryan. If the world was starting to darken, it was only because Rebanto’s eyes were weak. If Rebanto felt like crying, it was only because he was ‘too girly’ as Aryan often teased him to be. There was something wrong with Rebanto and he didn’t know what it was. Everybody has a penis! He tried reminding himself, but it did not help.

When Rebanto returned home, he did not remember much of what happened after Aryan had touched his penis. It all just seemed too blurry, and perhaps, if things were too hard to remember, nothing had happened at all. Perhaps, Rebanto had just dreamed it all. He sat silently next to the window and saw a tiny ant crawling on the windowpane. “How ugly,” Rebanto blurted before smacking it.