Free Everybody Sees the Ants by A. S. King

Lucky Linderman. How did you sleep? Still using those pink plastic weights?
    I wonder if the ants will ever go away. I remember wondering if my dreams would ever go away, too. Of course, they didn’t. Maybe the ants are the second step toward complete Linderman insanity.
    I pick out the Cheerios and pour them into the bowl at the only place setting left on the table. I fetch milk from the fridge, and on my way back I see Jodi just standing there watching me, with the vacuum on, but at a standstill, sucking the carpet right off the carpet.
    When I sit down, I notice the pill.
    The minute I notice it, I ignore it.
    The minute I ignore it, Jodi turns off the high-pitched whir of the vacuum.
    “How’d you sleep?” Jodi asks.
    I nod to acknowledge her question. “I expected more traffic,” I say, and cram some Cheerios into my mouth. Each bite makes my scab itch more. I chew in a way that makes me look crazy—moving my scabbed cheek in grandiose motions to scratch without scratching.
    “Yep. It’s quiet,” she says. “Safe, too. Dave and I sometimes take night walks and we never see any funny business.”
    Funny business
. It’s like she wants to be old or something.
    “You should try it,” she says.
    I nod. “I’ll take one tonight—maybe Mom will come with me.”
    “I mean
that
,” she says, pointing to the pill.
    “I don’t take pills.”
    “Maybe it would help,” she says.
    I get up, take my cereal bowl to the sink and rinse it. “Maybe it wouldn’t.”
    As I move to put my bowl in the dishwasher, she stops me. “I’ll do that.”
    She opens the top rack, and I see that her dishes are also arranged in some sort of dishwasher feng shui.
    Swimming is the only way to cope with being outside during the day here, even though chlorine is only going to dry out my scab. Staying inside for Jodi’s morning TV routine is out of the question.
    The pool is short, and I can only get in about five strokes of freestyle before I have to turn. Towels are unnecessary because the sun bakes you dry in about fifteen seconds… and then you have to jump into the pool again so you don’t fry on the spot. How do people live like this?
    The pill is still at my plate during lunch, but this time Mom sees it first.
    “That’s Jodi’s seat, Luck,” she says, and motions for me to move over.
    “No. He’s right,” Jodi says as she walks from the kitchen, balancing an array of oven-warmed, odd-smelling food. She puts the greasy chicken nuggets in front of me proudly and adds, “What do you dip with?”
    I don’t eat chicken nuggets, but I know I can’t be rude. “I’ll take honey, please.”
    My mother is staring at the pill.
    “Honey? Ugh! All that sugar is bad for you!”
    I nod because I do not have the energy to educate Aunt Jodi on how if she’s feeding me chicken freaking nuggets, most likely made out of the disgusting sphincter parts ofhormone-injected, badly treated factory chickens, then a few tablespoons of honey are the least of our worries.
    “What’s that?” Mom finally asks.
    I say, “A pill.”
    She gives me the look. The look says:
I know it’s a pill, Lucky. I wasn’t asking you
.
    Jodi throws of couple of sheets of fake-looking “roast beef” on a piece of bread with some kind of white cheese product on top and warms it in the microwave. She tops it with ready-made gravy straight from a jar. Just watching turns my guts.
    “Jodi?” Mom says, and Aunt Jodi looks up. “What’s that?” She’s pointing at the pill.
    “That?”
    Mom leans over, picks up the pill and holds it up between her index finger and thumb. “This.”
    “Just something to make him feel better.”
    “I feel fine,” I say.
    Mom is staring at Jodi, and Jodi is staring hard at the open-faced sandwich as she saws through it, puts half on a plate for Mom and sits down. She picks up her half, slops it through the blob of congealing gravy and shoves it into her mouth and takes a bite. While she’s chewing, she finally