Lee Marvin and the ant
Last night I found a frog in the road, a car came by but incredibly it managed to miss it. There was a river nearby so I picked it up by the leg and threw it into the shallows, feeling good. The incident reminded of me of something I wrote down a long time ago on holiday in Greece. Below is what I wrote.
We are eating cheese pies for lunch on the terrace washing them down with copious amounts of ‘quality’ retsina as Lee Marvin (looking like he did in his cat bellou period) shouts a Kali mera whilst painting the terrace next door. Ironically spaghetti western music blasts from the radio although as far as I am aware he was never in one. Whilst this is going on I spy an ant trying to lift the largest pastry crumb on my plate. Being in ‘Greek mode’ I spend a long time in quiet contemplation watching his every move. The strong meltemi winds are making his cause very difficult so taking pity I break the huge crumb into two. Now totally distracted from the book I was reading I watch the ant as it continues its progress off the plate over the table top and down the table leg. The Greek house we are in is perched from the quiet road by a shear vertical cliff and I watch with amazement as the ant climbs down this 14ft wall to the road. It struggles manfully in the wind on the road one step forward, two back avoiding the cracks. Suddenly I am awakened by the sound of a pick up approaching. My mind quickly calculates the odds for the ant’s survival, it’s a wide road and the ant is tiny. Suddenly, unexpectedly I am left utterly bereft as the left tyre goes clear over the ant.
I start thinking if I hadn’t broken that crumb for him, bought that pie or if the boat trip we should have been on today hadn’t been cancelled due to the wind…………
Appropriately as I force myself to look at the book I was reading the chapter ends with ‘as long as I live,’ he said, ‘I’ll never understand it.’ ‘You never know your luck’.