Test Song
Jeff T Kane

 


























	Hanscom sat across from Sencio and watched him cut his chunk of sugar into dozens of neat slivers.  He felt impotent watching Sencio suck on the sugar till it melted.  Hanscom had not tasted sugar since he heard his calling.  Michael Landon's could not eat sugar, reproduce, or carve their own tunnels in the colony.
	Sencio placed a red helmet in the dirt and eyed it with puckered lips as if he tasted lime.
	“Whitley Watkins asked me to make this.”
	In a gray Michael Landon wig is how Hanscom pictured Watkins at first mention and then it would dissolve into the current, bloated, cockroach wannabe Whitley Watkins.  Whit or Weejay , as his friends called him, no longer had that wig but he still wore the same satisfied smile he had on his face  the day he threw his jean jacket on the floor and said, “I’m through with the sugar aphid.”
	Sencio turned the helmet around to reveal a cartoonish cranberry face complete with a monocle, dangling chain, and chewed cigar  wedged into the corner of it’s mouth.
	“This is Cran Cavia, spokesperson for the Cranberry Co-op.” 
	Sencio had never failed to impress Hanscom with his work and this piece was no exception.
	“Watkins set up a meeting with the humans to offer them free cranberries for life.”
	Sencio sucked on a bit of sugar and wiped his mouth with the red sash tied around his neck.
	“Have some.”
	Hanscom tried to ignore the sugar  in Sencio’s hand but Sencio smiled and rushed at him nearly knocking into the torch that hung from the wall of Hanscom's tunnel.  Sencio caught Hanscom in a headlock and pressed a piece of sugar against his pursed lips.  Hanscom threw himself back to knock Sencio on the floor and rolled around in the dirt until he had Sencio’s body pinned beneath him. 
	“Are you sure it’s okay for a Michael Landon to kiss?”  
	Hanscom immersed himself in each of Sencio’s three perfect segments and knew he was done when Sencio came with a faint grunt.  Hanscom placed his open lips on  Sencio’s mouth and, with what he felt was all that he had left in him, he kissed him.  Sencio rolled over to face the dirt wall.  
	“What does Weejay want?”
	“From the humans?”
	“I told you already, free cranberries for our lives.”

	Hanscom awoke the next afternoon to the sound of Sencio’s voice.  
	“I was supposed to be at the meeting this morning.”
	“Lay down you smell like Raid.”
	Sencio’s eyes were swollen, and brown leafs full of Raid and honeydew or Black Flag.  Hanscom couldn’t tell for sure, he’d never even tried bug spray.
	“Watkins told me not to  show up, he hates the mask.”
	Hanscom held Sencio’s head in his lap and caressed his scalp.
	“Weejay is a jerk, it doesn’t matter.”
	Sencio cried so loud it sounded like the lawnmowers that humans ran over their anthills.
	“The humans told us to meet on a shelf,”  Sencio hiccuped and coughed up clear liquid that smelled like stale honeydew, “in the stock room of the 7-11, near east colony.”
	Sencio wiped his mouth and pushed himself off the ground.  Hanscom noticed how pale he looked against the torch light.
	“Watkins went with six hundred ants, the entire Cran-Co.   The humans didn’t show, but they left six flea bombs.”
	Hanscom reached for a leaf of Raid and let it fall, spilling,  just before it reached his lips.
	“They’re all dead except for Watkins and me.”
	“Nobody smelled the poison?,” Hanscom’s compound eyes were all crossed and dripping tears.
	“Did they not bring Jackie Cruise?”
	Sencio snatched his red sash and wrung it like a penance. 
	“Jackie Cruise’s eyes melted off his face, all he smelt was something sweet he said, something agreeable, almost pleasant,” Sencio threw his sash on the floor, “They should all be destroyed.”
	
	Hanscom picked the sash up and dusted it off on his waist before handing it back to Sencio.
	“It wasn’t every human,  just some bad seeds.”
	“I don’t need your Michael Landon games.”
	Hanscom forced a smile and reached out to grab Sencio’s hand.  Sencio slapped his hand away and stepped backwards.
	“You need to face reality Mister Michael Landon, the humans don’t believe in the sugar aphid, they never even heard of him and they definitely don’t know about love.”
	“”Don’t be mean.”
	But Sencio collected a few leafs and walked down the tunnel without saying a word.

	Hanscom lay trapped beneath a pile of dirt and rock and tried to remember what happened.  He was half dizzy and his mouth was so dry the inner part of his upper lip had cracked into a long thin sore that stung when he licked it and tasted sort of like copper wire.  Hanscom had not left his tunnel for weeks, not since Sencio’s last visit.  
	Hanscom found himself frustrated with his former lover’s attitude.  Sencio had no right to be so unforgiving to the humans considering he was raised on an ant farm, he owed everything he had to man.  The colony had been quiet since the 7-11 murders until today when Hanscom's tunnel had shook with a great rumbling and he woke up buried under his old roof.  
	“Hanscom?”  
	Someone poked Hanscom’s belly through the dirt and Hanscom giggled.  Hanscom felt the rock that pinned his chest lift and he turned his newly freed head up to see Whitley Watkins and Sencio digging out the dirt around him, roughly scratching his legs as they worked.
	“C’mon get up!”
	
	Weejay pulled a piece of sugar from his vest pocket but Hanscom waved it away and felt Sencio yank him out of the dirt.
	“He doesn’t eat sugar, you should know that.”
	Hanscom thought he saw a sneer on Sencio’s face as he said that and he was sure of it when he saw Whitley roll his eyes.
	“I wanna talk to you.” 
	Hanscom touched Sencio’s waist.
	“Private fag talk?”
	Hanscom nearly lunged at Whitley.
	“None of your business traitor.”
	“Why? Cuz I’m not a Michael Landon anymore?”
	Hanscom felt a drop hit his lip as Whitley coughed and spit a wad of douche into the forelock of his Michael Landon wig.  Sencio stepped between Hanscom and Whitley,
	“We have others to see to.”
	“What happened Sencio?”
	Whitley laughed and said, “Tuna fish aliens is what I call them.”
	Hanscom took his wig off and scraped the spitty forelock into the dirt.  Whitley was proud of the fact he ate tuna growing up.  Only the richest ants ate tuna and Whitley always found some odd way to bring it up.  Hanscom heard Whitley retch in his throat for a douche wad but Sencio slapped him across the mouth before he could spit it so it spilled out over his lower lip and he sucked it back up and swallowed it.  
	“There’s been an invasion, the humans are getting attacked.  They’re fighting back with army tanks.”
	“Stop joking me out Sencio.”
	Sencio urged Whitley on as they walked out of the tunnel.  Hanscom let them go but after a few seconds he heard Sencio calling back to him.
	“Go find yourself another tunnel Michael Landon.”
	Hanscom heard Whitley’s laughter and even though he couldn’t see him he knew that Whitley's eyes were rolling.



	Hanscom cleaned himself off and tried to find some of his old Michael Landon figurines, but all that was left were crumbs.  He knew of another tunnel in the deep part of old east colony that was pretty filthy but he was sure it was deep enough to have escaped destruction from whatever was going on above ground. 
	As Hanscom left the ruins of his old tunnel he passed another hole above him which was open to the sky.
	“It’s cool man, you’re gonna be dead soon anyway.”
	Hanscom heard this laid back voice like Sencio on Raid.  The voice was followed by a shrill, tortured scream and Hanscom ducked his head down.
	“Dude, chill, it’s gonna be all right.”
	That laid back voice was laced with a strange sort of acid, it was smooth but the sound burned inside Hanscom’s brain.  On the chance that it may have been Sencio or some other ant screaming up there Hanscom climbed through the hole and into the sunlight.  
	If it had not been for Sencio’s infectious knowledge of human culture Hanscom would have had no reference in which to describe these odd flying creatures.  A disturbing blend of the shark from “Jaws” and a boy named Reggie who lived in a fictional human town called Riverdale.  These “Regsharks” all wore yellow letterman’s jackets that had big C’s emblazoned in green on the breast.  It was these Regsharks that had spoken in laid back voices and he saw now that it must have been in between crying mouthfuls of human babies who’s stomachs popped like grapes on their teeth.
	One of them held a human pee segment which must have been yanked out by the root.  Hanscom watched as the Regshark sucked the weener like a lollipop and finished it off with a loud crunch like a tootsie pop, and he wondered if the segment blood was like chocolate to the Regshark’s palette.  Hanscom jumped through the hole and began digging as soon as he hit the underground.  He pictured Sencio’s pee segment probing every one of his orifice’s and dug all around him with no aim. 
	Hanscom dug in spite of the sugar aphid and left his gray wig buried under the pile of dirt and root he left behind him.  He burrowed as fast as he could till he was cut off from the light and the sadistic, easy going, Regsharks.
	
	Burrowing was something the sugar aphid could never compete with, not with a thousand of his phony love promises.  Hanscom had grown to love the total darkness and he hid away from the light, he continued to dig deeper.  Life was something all together different now to Hanscom without the burden of Michael Landon or, even worse, Sencio’s vulgar artist's ego. 
	“Hand me that cable Jerry.”
	A dot of light broke through the blackness above Hanscom and it was followed by a thin strand of white rubber.  Hanscom tugged on it.
	“Hey!”
	The strand slid back up and Hanscom grabbed on to it and was dragged through layers of clod, his face scratched with root and the skeletons of other ants.  Hanscom winced at the light as his head broke through the ground, he saw two young ants dressed in blue human style uniforms carrying a wooden cylinder wrapped with white rubber, like a spool of human wire.  
	“What colony is this?”
	The worker ants eyed Hanscom and one of them called over to him.
	“That sure is a queer thing to ask.”
	Hanscom dusted himself off and looked around the tunnel.  The walls were familiar except that human light bulbs rested where he’d remembered torches, and tiny human televisions hung from alcoves in the ceiling that Hanscom had remembered being filled with ancient ant carvings from a colony that dated back to a time before the great flood, to the continent of Atlantis.  The old ways were lost now and on the television screens that sat in their place their was an ant in a red wig, sailing in a matchbox boat and screaming about “dolphins”.  
	This scene was interrupted by the image of a Regshark who wore a smug grin along with it’s letterman’s jacket.  Beneath the Regshark’s picture two words scrolled past the screen, “COOLSHARKS RULE!”

	Two months after coming home Hanscom ran into Whitley Watkins in the main hall of east colony.  Just by luck the televisions were broadcasting an interview between Sencio and a female ant in a tacky blonde wig who’s name “Dottie Antamantian” was flashing in a pink heart at the bottom corner of the screen.
 	“The Coolsharks are hard to put into words.”
	“What about Big Matthew.”  
	Hanscom noticed a wistful smile approach Sencio’s lips as Dottie mentioned Big Matthew.
	“A great lad, he’s the one who approved my grant.”
	Dottie turned to face the audience with big smile, “That’s right folks, and Sencio just opened a brand new museum in west colony.”
	“It’s a study of the human race.”
	“Who are fortunately extinct my little gayboy,” Whitley Watkins always had something witty to say and Hanscom supposed the punch in the gut was meant to emphasize that somehow.  Hanscom doubled over and coughed, he tasted the grass he’d eaten that morning as it gushed over past his tongue and on to the floor and he was always amazed that the greener the grass was the browner it came out.  
	“Would you like a date to the museum opening?,” Whitley patted Hanscom on the back.  Hanscom focused on the sound of the television and avoided looking at Whitley when he straightened up to watch Sencio.
	“One piece is entitled ‘Beach Boys’, another is ‘Daisy Slash Rosemary’,” Sencio picked up a cracked yellow bowl  from the table between him and Dottie and looked at Dottie with his piercing brown eyes, “You make this?”
	Hanscom watched Dottie’s face twist into a leering, almost naked, expression, and he imagined her heart at that moment dissolving like a grain of sugar dipped in a leaf full of the thick juice that Sencio squirted from his pee segment when he came.  Dottie blushed as Sencio kissed the rim of the bowl.
	“This is art,” said Sencio as he placed the bowl back on the table, “it’s as simple as cracks in a bowl .”

	Hanscom shlepped all the way to west colony, without a date, to see Sencio’s museum.  The building was small but human style , constructed from glass and steel pieces.  Hanscom pushed through tinted glass double doors and passed a sign that hung near the dim lights in the dark foyer, it said “Daisy Slash Rosemary” in bright yellow letters with a red arrow pointing left.  
	Hanscom looked left and saw two large portraits that spun on wires suspended from the black ceiling.  One of the portraits was the human actress Mia Farrow with short hair and pale, sunken cheeks.  The other portrait was also Mia Farrow except in this one her face was full and flushed, and she wore a big yellow sun hat pulled down over her curly hair.  	Hanscom walked further down the dark hall and saw the exit door and next to it he noticed a small button in the center of the wall to the left of the door, it was green and translucent.  		The button gave off a faint glow and a small plaque beneath it, which seemed to be made from the same material as the button, had human letters carved into it that were hard to read.  Hanscom was familiar with the human sign for “Beach  Boys”, they were a band that Sencio had probably been obsessed with at some point.  The rest of the signs were illegible to Hanscom because he’d hadn’t  learned to read human, he never  had a taste for stuff that came in old cans or bottles so he had no need to distinguish between labels of Raid or baked beans.  Hanscom pressed the button and heard static, then a guitar being strummed, being tuned, then the chattering of human voices.
	“One more time...Hey Elmo!...I was gonna sing a test song...Sing a what?...A test song, it was a protest song till you tried it, now it’s a test song.”
	The guy who was talking started to sing about how people were drowning and the times were changing.  The words were strange but the voice was familiar.  It wasn’t Sencio who’d first told him about the Beach Boys, it was Whitley Watkins.
	All those years ago on the beach above south colony, the day they’d gotten their calling as Michael Landons, Hanscom and Whitley were roughhousing with some pieces of snail shell near the water.  A fat crab crawled out of the water and asked them for their sugar satchels.  They gave the satchels up without a fuss but he wasn’t satisfied with their crumby satchels and tossed them into the ocean.  The crab opened up both his claws.
	“I’ll clip you’se queers.”
	Hanscom squeezed Whitley’s hand as the crab hobbled towards them.  Then a blonde boy kicked the crab apart with his big gray sneaker just as his claw was about to clip Whitley’s neck.  The boy smiled at Hanscom and Whitley and put the two ants on his pinky finger.  
	Hanscom was young and he hadn’t seen many humans but he could see this boy was different.  His eyes were shaped oddly, more shapely than most humans.  His chest had a deep, jagged scar in it and his legs were softly bowed and matted with downy fur as soft and fluffy as the hair on his head.  The boy walked over to where a towel lay and set them down next to what looked like a giant square blue crystal of polished sugar with a long white rod sticking out of it.  
	As Whitley ran to lick the crystal Hanscom noticed another human who walked with a gray box on his shoulder and the box was singing with a beautiful voice, the man looked as if he’d been dipped in roach poop, his shade was so much darker than most humans he’d seen.
	“It’s the Beach Boys!”
	Whitley had stopped to listen to the gray box also.  Hanscom figured Watkins knew about the Beach Boys because he was rich, his family had all the sugar and cranberry seeds in the colony.  
	Hanscom and Whitley spent the whole day playing with their special human friend and when the sun went down the boy patted them both gently on the heads with his finger and left with his towel.  As they walked back home from the beach Hanscom and Whitley discovered the corpse of a big gray cat and plucked some fur from his body.  They used it to make their first Michael Landon wigs.  

	While walking back to his new abandoned tunnel , that the Coolsharks had equipped with ants versions of all the human type conveniences like a coffee maker and a hair dryer, Hanscom noticed that all the TV screens were blank with static but the sound worked because he heard an extremely laid back voice speaking over muzak.
	“Hi, I’m Big Matthew and I wanna have some straight talk with you about crack or whatever else is bothering you.  I mean even if it’s something silly like the type of toilet paper we provide I’m sitting here in my office with an open mind and an opener heart and I’m really psyched for some hardcore rap sessions, and I don’t mean the sort of rapping that the cafe colored people used to do.”
	Big Matthew’s voice was followed by a smaller antier sounding voice, Dottie Antamantian’s perhaps.
	“This message has been brought to you by the office of Big Matthew, King of the Coolsharks, right smack over east colony central, human building number three-thirty-five.”

	Hanscom climbed the exit hole above the central tunnel in east colony and looked for human building number three-thirty-five.  Hanscom saw part of a building which looked like it went on forever into the sky and was struck with the memory of Sencio once pointing at a human building and saying, “You know why they build them so high?  It’s to get away from us pests.”
	The giants sign for 335 hung high over a world sized doorway and Hanscom passed through a space between the glass double doors and was met by an eager young ant doorman who ran up to him.
	“Can I help you sir?”
	“I wanna have some straight talk with  Big Matthew.”
	“A rap session?”
	The door ant took  him by the hand and Hanscom couldn’t believe the size of this one’s pee segment bulging through gray uniform pants.  As big as Sencio’s which was known in some circles as “the Portnoy Colony Sniper”.  The well hung door ant climbed a ladder to the elevator’s up button and used a big ant mallet to press it, he then called, “Ninth floor,” down to Hanscom as the humonguous elevator doors slid apart.
	Hanscom hummed to the interesting beepy music that played in the elevator and realized that it was an even easier rendition of the muzak that had been playing during the Big Matthew commercial.  He watched the giant red number in the elevator screen change from “L” to “9” and as the door opened Hanscom saw that Big Matthew’s office was nothing more than a bare gray room with six gray rattan mats placed carelessly about the floor.  
	A horrible grating assaulted Hanscom’s ears and he assumed it was some sort of sickmaking music devised by the Coolsharks to disorient their enemies.
	“This is the best music I’ve rocked to on this planet.”
	Big Matthew lounged on a rattan mat near an open window chewing on a piece of ginger root.  He paused to pull a human cigarette from a crinkled packet which read “Salem Slim Lights” and Big Matthew lit it using a lighter that had the letters “BM” engraved in it.  Hanscom watched BM blow smoke and felt a glassy odor sting his feeler.
	“The humans called it Bon Jovi, I call it the sixth sound wave man.”
	Hanscom believed that Big Matthew was the first of the aliens he’d seen that deserved the name Coolshark.  Matthew was definitely no Regshark, he was more like the human superstar Kevin Sorbo, most obviously by his wild blonde mane.  Big Matthew’s luxuriant hair looked like it wouldn’t be tamed by a billion cans of Black Flag.
	“Sencio told me you were really into humans.”
	“I’d prefer if you and Sencio didn’t discuss me.”
	Big Matthew stood up to a full eight feet tall on his flipper said “Whether or not what we did was wrong,” and pushed out a muscular, toothy grin, “it’s irreversible man, the past is past.”
	“You must repent.”
	“You must chill out!” Big Matthew pointed a stiff left fin Hanscom’s way.
	“”Not until you say you’re sorry little Matthew.”
	“The humans were murderers,” Big Matthew hopped over to a cardboard box and rummaged through it, “that’s all I have to say.”
	Big Matthew tossed dan ant sized cassette tape which slipped through Hanscom’s hands and cracked open on the floor.
	Hanscom picked the tape up and read the homemade label Matthew had affixed to it, “Free & Easy Wanderer Vol. 4.”  He dropped the tape down the shaft as he leapt the gap and landed safely in the elevator going down.

	Hanscom started wearing his Michael Landon wig again and he spent a lot of time at Sencio’s museum listening to the test song.  He now stood in the coin return section of an old human vending machine which still had a dusty bag of “Skittles” in slot E6.  Hanscom was getting ready to work his Michael Landon magic on the ants.  He was going to preach.  
	Hanscom had run all over the colony wearing his lungs out in order to make sure the ants knew about his revival in the old vending machine by south colony, near the beach.  The only ants that had shown up so far were some teens hanging out in the basket of the machine leaning up against the aluminum wall sucking on sugarpops.
	Hanscom puffed his wig a few times and brushed his jean jacket off, the one with a halo ironed on the back, and climbed out of the coin return saying his Michael Landon’s.  The young ants laughed at him.
	“Sit in the back teens, leave room for the others.”
	“This is it loser, no one else is coming.”
	“You’re religion is old and gay.”
	“Yeah, we’re just here to drop some Combat.”
	“ It’s the realest.”
	Other ants climbed into the basket, taking amongst themselves about Big Matthew and the shark marionettes parade.  Hanscom saw that Weezy Cruise, Jackie Cruise’s elderly queen had shown up, she caught him staring and gave him a menacing sneer.  Her son had been killed by humans and Hanscom was about to accuse the creatures who avenged that death.  Hanscom knew that ants like Weezy gave the Coolsharks love for what they did, it wasn’t just Jackie Cruise, there were trillions of ants murdered by humans throughout time and perhaps only a hundred humans murdered by ants in comparison.
	The basket had filled so fast that Hanscom found himself encircled by bitter ants.  Sencio walked in with Whitley Watkins and a hush fell over the crowd which parted for them.
	“The humans are gone, my friends, victims of murder.”
	The crowd began to cheer.
	“But that does not mean we should forget them, we don’t have to forget them.”
	“The Coolsharks rule though.”
	“Yeah, chill out man.”
	Hanscom raised his voice and shook his feelers all around.
	“Please listen to me, the Coolsharks are murderers!”
	“Big Matthew rules muthafucka!” Whitley Watkins was perched on Weezy Cruise’s shoulder’s whooping it up.
	The crowd began to chant, “Weejay! Weejay! Weejay!”
	“The Coolsharks need to apologize for what they did, or else they’ll never learn, we’ll never learn.”
	“You don’t learn!”
	Hanscom glanced at the teen ants who climbed up near the bag of Skittles and began pulling on it.  They beckoned to the other youths gathered below them to ,”pitch in aiight!”
	The chants now alternated between “Chill out!” and “Big Matthew Rules!” led by Whitley Watkins.  The Skittles bag came loose and ants tore into it as they passed the red bag over each other’s heads.
	Hanscom pleaded but his voice was lost in the din and the ants continued to chant as they removed Skittles which heaved like bowling balls in there arms.  Hanscom saw Sencio and Whitley pushing each other back and forth and wondered why they were arguing.  Sencio knocked Whitley down and turned to face Hanscom.  
	Hanscom stood ready with a big smile for his former lover as Sencio picked a Skittle up and pegged it.  Hanscom felt a hard crack, his head whipped back, he saw Sencio chanting, “Chill out, Chill out,” before the blood filled his eyes and erased the artist.

	Hanscom opened his eyes and at first saw only blackness cut intermittently by bright spotlights.  He tried to move his head but his neck was stiff and frozen.  He tried to feel his arms, they were numb as well as everything else below his neck.
	Hanscom began to make out two human faces staring back at him.  It was two Mia Farrows.  He thought there was a glare or something like a wall of dust between him and the faces.  He tried to spit some douche but his throat was dry.  
	Hanscom’s eyes focused and he knew now it was a glass exhibition case that surrounded him and separated him from the portraits in Sencio’s first exhibit.  He caught the faint reflection of a creature who’s face resembled himself, except this creature had no body below the neck, only a toothpick inserted into the neck and glued to a round concrete base on the floor.
	Hanscom could also see another ant standing behind this creature, he wore a red sash and his face was familiar except more bloated with cracked skin like a Raid head.
	“What did you do Sencio?”
	Sencio ignored him as if deaf and Hanscom repeated himself, fully enunciating each word this time so Sencio could read his lips.
	“What have you done?”
	Sencio squinted at him and folded his arms across his chest, he puffed his cheeks and whistled.  
	“You’re the newest exhibit, I call it Casper Van Dien.”
	Hanscom wondered what that name meant as a wall of tears fall down his compound eyes.
	“I should call Watkins to come see you cry sometime, he’d love it.”
	Hanscom wished he’d never met Sencio and hoped he would wake up from this sick dream that belonged to a hack artist.  He heard Sencio mumble something like “portable Michael Landon fag” as he pushed through the glass double doors. 

	Hanscom passed his time staring at Mia Farrow, he preferred the Rosemary picture and made up a whole character around it who was this ant that was so good at sewing she made a human costume that let her pass as human.  She called herself Rosemary Landon and became a big fashion designer in Hollywood.  Hanscom was in the middle of a story when a familiar voice interrupted.   
	“Hey my little gayboy.”
	“Did you come here to see me cry.”
	Whitley Watkins didn’t hear Hanscom through the glass and he watched Watkins go over to the Mia Farrow pictures and examine them carefully.  Hanscom tried to remember what the second exhibit had been, he could not see that much of the museum and his memory was fuzzy since he’d been turned into a monster by Sencio.  Hanscom could no longer see Whitley but there were some younger ants there with their queen.  Hanscom froze his face and tried to be invisible but one of the lads tapped on the glass.
	“I think it moved.”
	“I’m so sure Cammy.”
	“It was a protest song...”
	That was not an ant voice, it was the Beach Boys, the other exhibit.  That voice was why he was trapped here but it sounded especially sweet this time.  This music was it for Hanscom.
	“You’re no Michael Landon!”
	The glass case shook around Hanscom, Whitley was banging his head against it and his eyes were raw like he’d been crying.
	“You’re no Michael Landon!”
	Whitley screamed louder and Hanscom yelled, “Shut up, shut up,” and wondered why he could hear Whitley but Whitley could not hear him.
	“You don’t even deserve the jean jacket.”
	Whitley tore the Mia Farrow frames down from the ceiling and smashed them against the glass case, but Sencio had always made his pieces sturdy and the glass would not give in all the way.  Whitley left and the teen ants just started at Hanscom and pointed their fingers.
	
	Hanscom could not approximate how long he’d been in the museum.  He was sure it had been a long time since he’d last seen Sencio and wondered if he still came in but was careful not to step in Hanscom’s line of sight.  Hanscom figured Sencio was so far gone with Raid he possibly had forgotten the museum and Hanscom all together.
	Hanscom looked at where the Daisy-Slash-Rosemary used to be and saw Sencio standing in her place.  He was holding something that looked like an ant newspaper and cutting it haphazardly with blue ant scissors.  Sencio walked over to the glass case with a handful of newspaper and hawked douche after douche till it was all Hanscom could see on the glass.  
	“You must be proud,” Sencio’s voice shook on every accent, “you saved Whitley.”
	Hanscom had nothing to say and Sencio stuck a piece of paper on the glass using douche, a fragment of an article.  
	“y had a leader,” Sencio continued to stick pieces up and Hanscom hurried to read them:
	“remains unknown...mass suicide...The Coolsharks...a rubber band to...into the rustiest...can. Sadly all...ant most of...east colony died...quoted as...like these littl...old bottle of...used a toilet pap...protesters...late last nig...checked out the...tthew was...rey wig...been called...in the old...efore the...more...Big Mat...a ying...It look...in the name of human kind...a Michael Landon...Black Flag!”
	It was hard to interpret the article but Hanscom realized something terrible had happened and Sencio blamed him.  A mass suicide and what could Hanscom have done from his toothpick?  Sencio stuck a black & white picture on the glass and swiped it down erasing all the words.  The picture was intact for the most part and Hanscom saw a pile of ants lying next to a spray can of “Black Flag”.  On top of all the ants lay one chubby ant who wore a gray wig and jean jacket.  Hanscom looked back over the picture at Sencio but he had already gone.  
	  

	


	

	
	


	


	

   




	
	

	



 

 

Copyright © 2004 Jeff T Kane
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"