It Was Never The Ants

I looked around the park and felt relieved that our group was only one of two present today. I’ve known these three families since I first moved to Melbourne. We met at Durga Puja and somehow connected, and it helped that all our kids are just a year apart. They get along easily, so we end up meeting often.

I don’t like the outdoors much. I like my comfort. But the soft breeze today felt nice. I’ve always liked breezes.

My son and the two other boys had already started playing with their ball, running around as if they owned the whole park. The two girls stayed close to the adults, giggling together. The puris had been made at home but needed warming, and the omelettes were being cooked fresh on the BBQ. The men had offered to handle the cooking, but the onions made them cry and complain loudly.

After feeding my son, I sat on the park bench for a moment of quiet. Rima came over with two plates, one for herself and one for me. The others were still crowded at the BBQ, arguing about who was actually doing the cooking and who was just supervising.

I felt a tickle on my elbow, and when I checked, I saw a red ant had crawled up. As soon as I saw the ant, fear shot straight through me. My heart started pounding so hard there were drumbeats in my ears. Before I even understood what I was doing, I jumped up and screeched loudly. My plate flipped over and crashed onto the ground, food scattering everywhere. It all happened so fast I didn’t even register the mess.

Rima nearly dropped her own plate in shock. The men at the BBQ dropped their tongs with a loud clatter and raced over. The boys stopped their game and rushed over, and even the other group in the park turned to stare at us, watching suspiciously from a distance.

I knew I was making a scene, but I couldn’t stop myself. My hands were shaking, my chest felt tight, and I kept brushing my clothes as if the ant was still on me, even though it had probably fallen off when the plate did.

“Are you okay?” Rima asked once I finally stopped screeching.

“Red ant,” I whispered.

She stared at me as if I’d completely lost my mind.

“Red ant?” she repeated, just to be sure.

“Yes,” I said, trying to smile even though I felt embarrassed. I sat back down slowly.

The others eventually drifted back to the BBQ, shaking their heads and laughing it off. The boys went back to their ball game as if nothing had happened. The two girls kept glancing at me nervously and whispering softly. I tried to act normally and bent down to pick up the fallen puri.

But then I saw a disciplined queue of red ants already marching toward it like an organised army. Something about that neat line triggered a long-suppressed memory.

I remembered the day I was attacked by ants as a child.The memory came back so fast it almost felt like a slap.

I was five years old that day in India, playing in a crowded park. It was the last day of school before the holidays, so the entire place was packed with children screaming and running about. I had gone with my two best friends from my class, still in our school uniforms because none of us had bothered to go home and change. We just wanted to play.

We were sitting under a big tree where the ground was dusty and scattered with red flowers, more like little dandelions than petals. We loved those flowers. We used them for our pretend tea parties, arranging them on leaves and pretending they were cake and samosas. It was the most ordinary, happy thing. Our mothers were sitting nearby, chatting while keeping half an eye on us and half on their conversations.

I remember leaning forward to fix one of the “cakes” when something sharp suddenly started pinching my legs and then my arms.

I jumped up quickly, panicking, and that’s when I saw it: a long queue of red ants right next to where I had been sitting. In my five-year-old mind, it made perfect sense. The ants had crawled up, attacked me, and were biting me everywhere. I started crying loudly. The pain felt sharp and hot, and I kept brushing my legs and stamping my feet.

My mother and the aunties came running as soon as they heard me. They lifted me up and started shaking my skirt and slapping at my clothes to get the ants off. Everyone talked at once, and I was too scared to even understand what they were saying. All I remember is the red marks all over my hands and legs and how much everything stung.

That was the day I became terrified of red ants.

Back in the Melbourne park, I saw my five-year-old son brush down his pants. For a moment my heart pounded again.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Ants!” he giggled and ran off.

I just stared at him. He giggled. When I was his age, I had been brutalised by ants, so why didn’t they even make a tiny dent on him? He’s usually a sensitive kid. The whole thing made me feel uneasy in the pit of my stomach.

Did I remember it right?

I had been so young. I remembered the pinches clearly, but… they were ants, right? If ants bit that hard, how could my son laugh and keep running?

I suddenly felt restless. I stood up and walked away while Rima was still mid-sentence. I knew it was rude, but I had this sudden urge to pace and think.

Did the pinches all happen at the same time?

I couldn’t really remember.

My son’s reaction kept replaying in my head. Were they even ants? I remembered a lot of red, but now I wasn’t sure if it was the insects or just my skin turning red from scratching. Maybe that’s why the colour red stayed in my memory for so long.

I also remembered scratching nonstop for hours that day. But the bite on my elbow now wasn’t scratchy at all.

So… was I wrong?

As I paced, trying to remember properly, my eyes fell on a small cluster of red flowers growing close to the bushes. I stopped instantly. They looked exactly like the ones we used to play with in India. Exactly the same colour. Exactly the same shape. I felt something shift inside my stomach.

I walked closer and bent down. The smell hit me immediately. It was the same smell from that day in the park when I was five. I hadn’t thought about it in years, but the moment it reached my nose, the memory came back. Ants don’t have a smell.

And then, suddenly, I remembered something I had completely forgotten. My mum applying ointment when we got home. I remembered crying in the bathroom while she tried to stop me from scratching. And I remembered taking medicine for almost a week. Why had I forgotten all of that?

Ant bites don’t need medicine.

Ant bites don’t smell.

Ant bites don’t leave you scratching for hours.

I just stood there, staring at the flowers. It wasn’t the ants. It had never been the ants. It was these red flowers. All these years of fear… all because my five-year-old mind had put the blame on the wrong thing.

I felt embarrassed, but also strangely relieved. At least the fear had a reasonable explanation now. And it wasn’t the tiny ants in Melbourne who had nothing to do with it.

The next morning, when I took Panda, my dog, to the dog park, I found myself looking around for ants without feeling that familiar panic. I spotted a small line of them marching up a tree trunk. They looked tiny and harmless, not like the monsters I had imagined for so many years.

I hesitated for a second, then put my finger on the bark and let one ant climb up. It wandered around my skin as if it was confused about why it had been given this new responsibility. It didn’t bite. It didn’t even seem interested in biting. It was just an ant being an ant.

I blew on it gently, letting it crawl back onto the tree.

I touched my elbow again, where the bite from yesterday already looked like nothing. For the first time in years, the sight of a red ant didn’t make my chest tighten.

I smiled quietly to myself.

Children really do see the world differently.