Damned Ants
“I can pick up corpses with the best of them,” she said.
“God, Helen. You’re such a braggart.”
“Ladies will you settle down?” David said rolling his eyes as he dried a glass. “I think you both have had too much to drink.”
Dave’s Bar was located in a prime location in the heart of the city about half a block away from the church. Occasionally the pastor would visit to preach about the morals of drinking, but David was a very good Christian who would go to church every Sunday and perform all of the expected duties. He even closed on Lent to help all of those in need, as he said it.
“No really,” Helen said. “You haven’t lived until you’ve picked up ant corpses from under the pews. It’s one of those things that the pastor’s wife is a stickler about. If its summer and they’ve been having too many ants, she’ll have her husband tell all of those people who have confessed to sins to clean up the dead ants after she sprinkles baby powder like she’s baptizing the place. That’s why I never go to confession when the season’s changing.”
Helen was a young girl who was chased out of the nunnery at the said church because she had been found pregnant one day. She was very pretty with silver-blond hair and aquamarine eyes. Quite possibly she was older than she looked and said she was. Although she had a quick tongue, she was the nicer of the two women.
Sylvie had been going to the bar since before David worked there. She was graying a little in her auburn hair, but her hazel eyes sparkled with youth. “I don’t go to confessions at all,” she said downing another shot of rum. She didn’t talk much, mostly drank; in fact, she could easily drink a bottle a night.
“Well why not?” David asked, putting away the glass. “You have a duty as a good person to cleanse your soul of your wrong-doings.”
Sylvie laughed. “You do realize how many confessions I would have to do to make up all of this alcohol consumption,” she took another sip, “and the infidelity, heresy, pride.”
“Come off it; you can’t be that bad,” Helen said.
“I was seventeen when I had my first kid. The father took off like a rocket. At twenty-two I got married for the sake of the family. At twenty-four I caught him cheating on me with a little redheaded snot. He, however, refused to sign the divorce papers for the sake of my kid. At twenty-six I met someone else. At twenty-seven he took me to court with photographs of my boyfriend and me. I lost custody of my son. After praying devoutly for two years, at twenty-nine I gave up and became an atheist. At thirty, I moved into town and became the local alcoholic. Thus, my sins.”
The counter was silent as David finished putting away the bottles and glasses. “I’d better wish you a good night.”
“Well,” Helen said, giving him her glass. “It doesn’t seem to matter how many sins you have, there are always ants plaguing the church. But I admit, that’s a whole lot of ants to pick up.”
Sylvie looked at her, flabbergasted.
“Good night.”
David watched her go and laughed. “As much as she hates the church, now, she still thinks like a nun.”
“No,” Sylvie said putting on her coat, “she thinks like the pastor’s wife.”
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 17th, 2007 at 8:24 am and is filed under Fiction Prose, Paradise Lost, Realistic Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.