Sajakkini

In the doldrums of mid-Sunday afternoons I would sit and gaze out over my balcony at the world beneath my feet, munching on buttered toast laced with blueberry jam, sipping on Japanese mocha (freeze-dried and instant, maybe, but handcrafted, ma’am; read the label and see). And then, upon finishing, I’d feed my ants.

It’s easy - I just leave my plate out overnight. By next morning it would have been stripped empty of crumbs, leaving the china pristine and white. This always give me great pleasure, knowing that my subjects have been well-fed for yet another week of mischief and leisure.

I am a benevolent dictator. A tyrant most kind, I give them the space to roam about, but other than that they have no say. Like every good genial monarch, I look upon them with condescending affection. Every morning I check my dry bathroom sink before I fill the basin with water lest I accidentally drown someone down it (and to his family that would surely be a bother). I tread carefully wherever I go for, like Solomon, I constantly hear their distress over children being trampled beneath the feet of yet another arrogant regress.

RUHAYAT X is a pussycat. He would never kill or stub an ant out. He is also the type you would introduce to your mother, but not your father.

Bow to me, thy lord

No. These people - my sweet, little people - shall not suffer for me. No widows nor orphans because of me be.

But I am not democratic. No ballot cubicles for the proles, no comment boxes for the peasants. I give when I want, they can only take what is doled. It is a one-way street.

Maybe because of this, they are not always appreciative of my kindness, my humble servants. I suppose such is the primal love for freedom that to live under somebody else’s laws is intrinsically loathable. So there will always be those who rise in dissent. Six-legged Voltaires who only wish my downfall. Every now and then a be-antennaed Guy Fawkes emerges and deigns to bring me to the torch’s blistering call. They are the ones who dare bite me.

In the face of such bald insolence I have no choice but to lay down the rule of law. But let it be known that my justice, while brutal, is also generously swift. (Just ask some of the widows, though not all would agree, I’m sure.) They who have pained me (thus decreed the probate) shall linger in death not.

So once they have condemned themselves thus, eternity is visited upon their ass by a quick stamp of the palm. Or the stomp of an angry foot (I am but human - if you sink your fancy dental extensions in me, do I not bleed?).

Rebellion

Occasionally - and this is quite rarely - these rebels organise themselves into armies of guerillas. These then go out running up and down under my pants, mking it very difficult for me to dispense the usual swift justice they beg for.

You must understand when I say that such people must not be tolerated. Given half the chance they will quite happily turn our homes into versions of downtown Iraq. So rebels must be made into an example, to discourage those thinking of taking up the cause. Besides, surely theirs must be a futile cause, for am I not benevolent and wise?

Hence, rebellious forces like these, once caught, I gleefully rub slowly into the ceramic tiles, in front of their horrified brethren.

But like I said, such moments are exceedingly rare. The majority of the time we co-exist quite happily, each cognisant of the other’s presence and acknowledging our individual rights to live.

Sometimes I find myself fixated on them as they go about their business. They are always busy, ants. They never stop to pause. And I always find myself wondering, living with me as they do on this apartment on the 15th floor, do they know they are living in an anthill in the sky?