Inside the Writer's Head: "Just An Ant"

Just An Ant

A writer decides to write about an ant. So it is written: There is an ant.

Then the voices begin.

Just one ant?

Right; the ant needs more development. Edit: There is an ant line.

Where is this line?

Setting edit: There is an ant line on our path.  

What kind of ants? 

Black ants. 

Black with red marks? Or very dark brown ants?

They are tiny shiny black ants walking across our path.

Tiny as in small? That doesn’t explain anything.

Okay, tiny as in the size of sesame seed. 

And they are just walking?

Shiny ants the size of a sesame seeds are moving together in a black cloud across our path. Look at them march in unison. One, two, three, four. Here comes a flutter of wings. A smallish bird, with drab coloring. 

Smallish?

About the size of a small rock. 

How small is a small rock? 

I don’t know, like my fist? 

Well are you a large person or a small person? A man or a woman?

*Pause*

Re-edit: The bird is the size of a medium female person’s fist. A smallish bird, with drab coloring. 

Drab in what way? 

Drab in every way. There are not many ways something can be drab. Is there? 

Yes, yes there is. Drab can mean dully dressed.

A bird doesn’t have clothes. 

It can mean not stylish or elegant.

Again. Birds don’t have clothes.

What about a lack of brilliance?

Fine. The bird has a certain lack of brilliance in its plumage.

That sounds . . . boring? 

Well the eyes are not boring. They are very brilliant. Glittery and black. 

Re-edit: The bird is the size of a medium female person’s fist. It has a certain lack of brilliance in its plumage, drab. However, its eyes are bright and glittery and black.

Aren’t bright and glittery the same thing?

I'm not sure. 

Me neither. I think they are though. What is the bird doing? 

It's watching the ants, and the spider jumping around them. 

Just watching them? And where’d the spider come from?

Okay, no spider, and the bird is standing a few inches away from the ant line, hopping a little bit from left to right and its head is cocked to one side. There is something bouncing over the grass. Boing, boing, boing.

What is bouncing? 

It’s a grasshopper. The bird is watching a grasshopper.

A grasshopper? What happened to the ant?

. . .  

Damn it.