1.3. MRS. PALOMAR IN THE GARDEN
1.3.3. Of an Anthill
Mr. and Mrs. Palomar are resting in their deck chairs. Mr. Palomar has said he shall spend the afternoon working, but in fact he has fallen asleep in his chair. Mrs. Palomar hopes the neighbors won't object to her husband's snoring, which outside sounds like an angry wild animal shuffling and growling in the brush. She is pleased for the moment to watch the goings-on in the garden, which is a place of infinite interest to her in its constant shiftings and shovings. It is as if the garden were a kind of transportation hub of nature, animals moving in and going out with all the hurry and neurosis of the morning commuters. Sometimes she feeds them, the birds or the squirrels, imagining herself as the short order cook in the station greasy spoon. The smell of barbecued meat drifts in from a neighboring yard, enhancing her fantasy.
Most fascinating to Mrs. Palomar are the ants in the corner of the garden, a colony whose anthill has grown to where it reaches Mrs. Palomar's kneecap when she stands over it watching. Her deck chair is situated close to the colony so that a line of ants is steadily moving in single file over her pale foot. She can feel their small, sticky feet tapping in succession on her skin like a military drummer. The ants move in a parade that seems never to end, a long line leading into the anthill, feeding it ants in astonishing numbers so that Mrs. Palomar asks herself how all of these animals fit within such a structure. She furthermore wonders from where they derive in her small garden. Occasionally an ant carries a dead member of the colony on his back, the lifeless black feet and toes pointing into the morning air. Sometimes this pallbearer ant stops before the anthill and tosses his cargo to the side of the line, then sets to work dismantling the carcass with expediency. Mrs. Palomar thinks, "Is this what it is like to die among those you've loved? They carry you like a doll, only to throw down your corpse outside the house to avoid the stench." She watches the river of wriggling bodies with amazement.
The anthill itself pulsates slowly, the dust that makes its walls is wrinkling and flaking externally, sometimes onto Mrs. Palomar's painted toenails. Mrs. Palomar thinks of her own house in the city, in the afternoons after her children come home from school, their voices and steps resounding in such a way that she thinks the siding on the outside of the house might begin to strip off and fall to the ground in melty heaps. She touches the side of the anthill lightly with her toe, concerned that this gentle pressure might cause the collapse of the entire structure, sending the colony whirling and confused out of the top of their home as if from a volcano.