In an Ant Farm with a Missing MustacheA Story by Gaston Villanueva This isn't your ordinary house party I arrive at my destination and jump off my yellow bicycle. Everyone heading to the front door is carrying milk gallons, myself included. I poke the ant who is welcoming the guests into my friend Sydney’s soiree. The graham crackers he’s offering us look as firm as a tiger’s tonsils. I respectfully decline and stumble into Sydney’s place, her mansion in an ant farm. Psybient music ravishes the guests and I notice Sydney sharing some laughs with a couple of coughing plates. I weave in and out of the exotic guests and get her attention. Hi. Hi. You’re dressed very dapper, I smile. Thanks for coming, do you care for a box? She hands me a cigarette box and I politely take it. Thank you but I don’t smoke. Oh, there aren’t cigarettes in there, she laughs. I open it up and to my surprise there are actually assorted crayons in it. I chuckle and head over to a dinner table. I sit down on a chair and two reindeer sandwich me in the middle of them. Hi. Hi. Hi. Long time no see, they tell me. I take a bite of my bean-smothered toast. Uncertainty rises as my crumbs hit the floor and they continue to play the literary piano. My stomach lining blushes. I’m a savant of entropy and your drops of sunlight embrace my swollen mind. They nudge me in the wrist. Look, those ants are about to bring out a human! Applauses from everyone ignite the room and the human does his circus act of warping shadows. After a few moments, he finishes by sticking googley-eyes on a gentleman’s jacket. The ants put him back in the box and take him up to the attic like old Christmas decorations. I remember who these two reindeer are now. They are the right and left hemispheres of my brain. I decide I want to admire the ant farm’s décor and trip my way to an exquisite-looking gold fish eating salad. Hi. Hi. I really like this painting, as I point to a painting. She tells me that it was painting by Fregoli, the professor who flunked Socrates out of his philosophy class. The painting has my full attention. Shards of broccoli holding mocking umbrellas. Remnants of raviolis with a flock of tormenting dragonflies spewing out of them. A totem pole of pears and oranges deeply concentrated on opening a rusty oven. A trail of icy flan giving a parking ticket to a melodramatic can of water. The painting is smothered with erase marks and stitches. She tells me that it’s called The Mind of a Picky Eater. A vapid looking chainsaw with a blue fedora approaches us. Hi. Hi. Hi. He looks me in the nose and interjects that my mustache is missing. I tell him that I don’t have a mustache but he’s in denial. Your mustache is missing! Your mustache is missing! Two ant body guards escort him out of the party and I exhale to the rhythm of the music. Sometimes problems camp beside us, she tells me. I see Sydney in a full pilgrim costume and only hear the punchline of the joke she is saying: And so I told my sloppy cloud to mail the dessert… Yesterday! The whole place breaks into laughter and the booming echo sling shots earworms into my left ear. They’re eating ice cream cones and growling a melody with spicy harmonics. I’m now on the 7th story balcony and watching a conglomerate of German soap puppets gathered around a Birman cat with hipster juice boxes and a cootie-catcher. Hi. Hi. Red. 4. Blue. Will I ever find what conforming to society really means? He trembles as he opens the answer. The irony of having it look like everything’s going the right way. He begins to burn midnight oil. I’m Schrodinger’s cat and no one ever wants to hear my opinion. They say I’m alive and dead but what’s really going on is that I’m alive and then I’ll die. Shrimps, I need shrimps. Four hang-gliding pudding cups drop a care package containing six organic microwave stickers. There’s not enough for everyone so I go back to the first floor. In the elevator, an ant named Zen asks me how I know Sydney. Hi. Hi. I tell Zen that we met in a plastic bottle that was travelling to a lagoon while being pushed by a herd of crickets. My check engine light was on and she helped me. He tells me that Sydney was one of the few left that could give a lecture in Spanish whilst helping shivering carpet farmers churn butter. Felicitaciones! Finalmente graduaste y espero que lo páses muy bien en Berkeley! Nunca páre de ser divertida y sos un gran amiga! He tells me that he’s allergic to bouncing and must stay on the elevator as I exit. His reaction is excessive when I say thank you. I’m ready to leave and I make my way passed a sea of abstract souls drinking chocolate-covered hotdogs. A grandmother grabs me by the hat and warns me that she saw a mustache with soft knuckles. I explain to her it’ll be okay and think momentarily about how I lack the ability to make real human connections. I see Sydney and tell her she’s about to step on a ping-pong ball but I’m really just messing with her. I whisper that I had a good time and can’t wait for her next soiree. I grab my milk gallon and make my way to the front door of the ant farm. I get on my yellow bicycle and start to ride away. I look back and watch as the sound of a wooden bat reverberates our little planet. I hear the sound of tissue paper ripping and the sky now has ever-growing crevices. The bat continues to mercilessly hit at us and a monstrous swing finally spills us out of our comfort zone and festivities. I make eye contact with a little girl who just took off her blind fold. Happy graduation! I smile and they come running.
© 2015 Gaston VillanuevaAuthor's Note
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