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21 " Apparently, smiling and joking was an additional sign that I needed "real help." And so I initiated Operation Don't Smile Ever. It's been a very succesful operation. We have perplexed many an enemy. "
― A.S. King , Everybody Sees the Ants
22 " The ants say: aren't we all bleeding a little? "
23 " I don't even use the stupid shampoo. "
24 " Always? I know this sounds totally stupid, but sometimes I really can't see the point in living if I will always have to deal with this crap. I know I will have better times in my life, and I might even make myself into someone important, but if the whole time I have to deal with assholes, then what's the point? "
25 " And really–I would rather suck truck fumes than deal with this sort of shit forever. Mom says that Nader is a loser who will grow up to be a loser and that I'll understand when I'm forty. But I want to understand now. "
26 " New skin is a miracle. It's proof that we can heal. "
27 " Lara Jones never fails to tell me that my reading about war makes me weird, but I can't get her fascination with reading abour fairies and wizards, so I guess that makes us even. "
28 " When they torture me, they show they’re weak. When I survive, I show them I’m stronger. "
29 " I get the urge to feel it, too, so when she takes her hand away, I turn her toward me and I feel the edges of New Jersey. I kiss Hoboken and Atlantic City. I kiss Newark and Trenton. I kiss Camden, and then I follow the road west, over the Walt Whitman Bridge into Pennsylvania. And I kiss home. "
30 " I think back to the last thing Dave said to me and try to imagine what escaping oxygen would look like. It looks a lot like drowning. "
31 " He digs out a fortune cookie fortune from his mouth, as if his mouth has a pocket. It says THE SIMPLEST ANSWER IS TO ACT. He hands it to me. I nod and put the fortune in my own mouth pocket. "
32 " Smile, son! That's the ticket out! "
33 " No one has proved to me that my husband isn’t still alive somewhere in Southeast Asia. So, as far as I’m concerned, if even one man is alive, we own him more than this – than presuming him dead for the sake of tidying paperwork. "
34 " It's long past dark, and I don't see anyone walking tonight. Maybe Sundays are off-limits. Maybe my ninja girl even goes to bed and gives her swaying, beautiful hair a break. I wonder where she sneaks off to. I wonder, does she have a secret boyfriend or a favorite place? The ants say: What the hell are you doing to yourself? You'll never see her again. She lives two thousand miles away!Then I think of Granddad and wonder why I dream about a man who is twelve thousand miles away. It makes me ask: Why do I care so much about people who are so far away from me? "
35 " I am slowely realizing that Ginny's parents are from tjhe planet Wow, Really? The ants weigh in: I tjhink you meant the planet Fucking Asshole. "
36 " You're right. Sorry. So-don't you think they'd notice you more if you smiled and seemed happier? "
37 " I find myself thinking that it would be nice to be able to fix my life the way I’m fixing the patio. I wonder, is there enough terracotta-colored cement to fill the hole where my father should be? Or where my mother’s spine should be? Or where my guts should be? "
38 " It occurs to me if we kissed now, we'd be like a folded map of America. My Pennsylvania scab next to her New Jersey black eye. I wonder, then, how many other kids could join in. Where are the Montanas and the Colorados? Where is the Vermont? Florida? How many maps would we make? "
39 " When they torture me, they show they’re weak. When I survive, I show I’m stronger, "
40 " Friends act like friends "