Between the room door and the food storage, several stations lay in between. Each station is managed by an ant carrying the winter provisions, passing them to another ant at the next station, until the storage is full.
But today, Leila encountered something strange—her friend had disappeared. She hadn’t left a message saying she was out in the bathroom or biting a child. Confused, Leila placed a piece of sugar down and sat on it, waiting.
When her friend did not return, she went back to work, stacking the sugar in rows and then columns until it became a three-story house. Since food deliveries had been delayed from her side, the ants took another route instead.
She carried the last piece, the wind swaying it so much that she almost flew. As soon as she reached home, the rain poured down. She closed the door, clasped her hands together, and blew into them several times.
Leila wore woolen gloves and covered her head. She made a cup of tea, added a sugar cube, then sat on her couch, watching the rain through the window. The gray hues of winter filled her with nostalgia for her grandmother’s bed. She laughed, realizing that she, too, was now a grandmother.
“Oh, Leila, you’ve grown old,” she sighed, sipping her tea as she watched the rain.
As a child, she loved everything that could fly. Butterflies? “They have colorful wings.” Flies? “They have colorless wings.”
But when she saw a cockroach, she panicked and opened the window.
He was Al—a large, flying cockroach, agile and quick. He was the heartthrob of all the village girls and the only one who had ever defeated the children in a battle, before a mother intervened and smacked him on the back.
He landed near her, flipped onto his back. She called out to him, but he called her a fool—how could he fly to her while upside down? Annoyed, she shut the window and decided she hated everything that could fly.
Butterflies? “Obsessed with light.” Flies? “Spread diseases.”
She knew she loved only Alaa.
He adjusted himself, straightened his attire, and knocked on the window. His broad shoulders blocked the light, but she saw him coming. She opened the door and said, “This way, you idiot.”
He apologized, explaining that he was simply used to entering through windows.
“Your house is beautiful.”
“Thank you. I hope it will be filled with children someday.”
They laughed, recalling their adventure that had never been completed.
“Imagine a flying ant.”
“The queen would love that.”
“Ah, because she would have the wings of a cockroach.”
“And because she would be as beautiful as her mother.”
“Is it too late?”
Leila wept. He held her in an embrace and didn’t leave until he saw her smile. He put on his hat and promised to check on her from time to time.
Winter is harsh for an aging ant—biting her with cold and memories, and a lover who returned too late.
Leila became known as “Leila the Sugar Ant,” and her home is still visited to this day.
