June Flash Lit #2: The Predetermined Path

Henry surveyed the territory.  He scratched his beard, glanced upward at the pines, noting the neon tips of the new growth.  The earbuds nestled in his ears like baby birds, but these birds were more about beats than chirps—he liked his Mickey Hart drumming.

There were weeds in the bean patch.  He’d need to do some hoeing later.  The pencil behind his ear had tooth marks in it, but that was the way he liked it; it gave his fingers something to grip as he jotted a memo in the notebook from his back pocket.

Tiny movements caught his eye as the pencil dribbled its gray marks.  He crouched.  Ants.  They made a dotted line across the soil toward the tiny caldera that was the entrance to their home, bearing crumbs on their backs in heavy, sweatless toil.  It had a rhythm, that work, but a bit too regular for Henry’s taste.  One more stretch of his arms overhead and he took off into the trees with long strides.  He imagined himself loping forward and forward and forward into more and more trackless woods, but he knew sooner or later he’d loop back.

His mother was making vegetable chili for dinner.