anything,” Stephanie emphasizes. “I obviously want it to be true, but I’m not totally sold.”
Alix, chomping into ginger cookie number four, fans her mouth: “Spicy! Compliments to the chef. Anyway, we’ll never know anything if we sit around like a bunch of motor mouths.”
Raymond agrees. “Despite my proclivity for blabbing, I’m in full accord. Let’s turn to the scientific method, and commence the Great Power Shift experiment.”
He nods with extreme seriousness in my direction. I take it as the signal to begin reading from Ambrosia’s recommended exercises. “Practice number one. Start small. A bug perhaps, some worthless member of a particularly despicable subspecies whose minuscule size is in inverse proportion to the amount of irritation and pain it causes.”
“In plain English?” Alix asks.
“A flea,” I say.
“Or a dung beetle,” Alix suggests.
Stephanie looks unhappy. “I value all creatures large and small. Each and every one has a role to play in the environment. Without the dung beetle, there would be—”
Alix interrupts by grabbing the paper from my hand. For someone who’s submerged in water so much, her nails are incredibly dirty. She squints like she’s reading the fine print at the end of a legal document. “Tell any friend of the dung beetle that sometimes something has to be sacrificed for the greater good. Tell her that by doing one little experiment on a stupid bug that nobody will ever miss, she might discover her power to save an endangered llama or even the whole planet.”
Stephanie lunges for the paper, misses. “Where does it say that? It doesn’t say that.”
“Naw, it doesn’t,” Alix confesses. “But let’s say you can save only one thing, an endangered llama or a flea. Which lives?”
“Llamas aren’t endangered.”
Alix hurls the stuffed animal at Stephanie. “You know what I mean! Would you sacrifice Mr. Itchy Welt Maker to save Never Hurt Anyone Little Llama?”
Stephanie thinks hard. She’s running her tongue along her braces. “This is tough. It’s not just about one bug. It’s a whole moral and political question about power.”
“Give me a break.” Alix groans. She notices an ant crawling on the nightstand. “How about that?” With the tip of her fingernail, she nudges it to the center of the table. “One stupid little ant,” Alix insists. “We don’t even know what’s going to happen to it.”
“Probably nothing, right?” Stephanie nods a reluctant okay, and Alix pumps her fist in triumph. Raymond volunteers to read the directions so the rest of us can concentrate. Ambrosia’s paper doesn’t say to lock the bedroom door, but we do it anyway. It doesn’t say to sit next to each other, but the three of us move closer to the table, the sleeves of our shirts touching. We’re ready. This is it. Raymond reads Ambrosia’s directions:
“Step one: Isolate the victim. Step two: Follow the victim’s movement. Put all your hate on it. Then double that hate. Triple it.”
Honestly, I don’t start out feeling any special hate for the ant, definitely not the double-triple variety. There are plenty of things in life that deserve to be hated, but how do you hate an ant? Still, I decide that I want to try this, and that means putting aside any resistance and not listening to my doubts. I want to give it my all.
If you feel your mind softening or taking pity, don’t listen to it.
So I don’t. As indifference comes to the surface, I replace it with contempt. As sympathy for the ant arises in my mind, I dash it away. It’s like setting a radio in my head to station HATE. I turn down the volume on acceptance and crank up the blame. I think of picnics ruined and food wasted. I imagine ants crawling all over me, their filthy feet and disgusting segmented bodies. Someone has to take revenge on them. Ants would take over the world if we didn’t.
It turns out that hardening my mind—moving it in the direction of judging, despising, detesting—is a lot easier than I thought it would be. It’s a snap. Once I let go and give it permission, I feel myself go there naturally.
Step three, step four. I follow the sound of Raymond’s voice until his words lose focus, just as my vision does.
That’s when I hear a hint of static, far away but moving closer, deeper, louder, and, embedded in the chaotic sound, I can pick out a melody. It’s the tune. Notes rising and falling. I hear a voice join in, and it’s strong and clear, and it takes a while