My friend is a foot taller than me. That makes him the leader.

“They taste like butter,” he says, showing me ants emerging from their nest. “Try one.”

I grasp an ant as it takes its first view of daylight. I watch it struggle, small, helpless and lost in indecision.

Mark Farley was raised in Africa. He now lives in Swindon, UK, dividing his time between web page development, opera singing, and blogging his random attempts at creative writing at mumbletoes.blogspot.co.uk.