Aliens, maybe

I was going to write a blog about the rain but then something far more interesting happened. Or not, depending on how you look at it. An ant walked across my laptop screen. It started at the bottom and made its way north. Big deal, except that as it reached the dark frame of the laptop screen it seemed to disappear. I didn’t think too much about it at first and continued filling the page with lines of ‘asdf asdf asdf’ which is what I do when I have starting problems with anything I write.

But then it happened again. This time it came from the east end of the screen, suddenly materializing like it had been beamed into this world by two mischievous 10-year-olds in a passing spaceship. It crawled southwards and vanished as it reached the bottom part of the frame right above the DELL logo.

Five seconds later it reappeared on the top-right corner and made a diagonal path towards the bottom left, walking with dogged (or anted?) determination. Midway it changed its mind and headed east, doing its disappearing act again as it reached its destination.

I just sat there dumbstruck, waiting for it to emerge again. I was about to yell for the wife to come and share in my hallucination when an idea suggested itself in my head. I stuck the fingernail of my index finger between the frame and the screen. The fingernail slid in, prying apart the frame from the screen. Aha! I thought. So there is an explanation – a crevice! But even as I thought this, logic seemed to fall on its knees.

I had had to pry open the frame from the screen, like Velcro, or like a Bollywood hero arrived just in time to save his girl from the lecherous villain. There was no natural crevice, so where did the ant go?

Even as I sat thinking this, the ant materialized again, this time near the bottom-right corner. Enough was enough, I said to myself. This state of affairs, as Hilary told Bill, could not be allowed to continue. Not wanting to injure the ant I gently picked it up, couching it comfortably between the fleshy portions of my thumb and index finger, and deposited it on the floor.

Two minutes later I could feel something crawling up my leg. The hair on the side of my calf was being disturbed, sorted and mowed down as something made its way up, treading with tiny legs and machine-like perseverance. I was wearing a pair of shorts, so like Nero, I only had to look down to see what was happening. To my horror, the ant had returned. What did it want? Why was it doing whatever it was doing? Was it guided by higher powers or was it moved by its own free will? What was its purpose in the world?

I sat there fascinated as it journeyed upwards. It struggled over the vast expanse of belly and chest, climbed the slope of the shoulder, trotted down the arm and finally reached my right hand. It stood there for a while patiently mulling something and then, appearing to have made up its mind, crawled towards the thumbnail. Reaching the horizon where the thumbnail meets flesh, it disappeared.

Two hours have passed. I am waiting for it to appear again.

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