Little
Black ants saved my Eyes
This is dedicated to the tiny
animals (plants included) that we barely see with the naked eye.
Unfortunately, to see the
microbes we need a satisfactory microscope.
That alone is not enough we
need to kill them, fix them and stain them.
All important cells are white
and transparent to light to protect them from light and energy rays.
Only few cells carry pigments
that protect cells and confine them to important energy transfer
systems.
Reason being we cannot see
cells unless they contain a pigment that our eyes can see (light is a
spectrum of many energy forms, unfortunately human eye can see only a
tiny part of the spectrum; this is true for hearing and smell too) or
we do deliberately use at least (Blue and Red) two pigments which our
eyes can distinguish.
The computer can distinguish
millions of colour shades but our eyes can contrast 16 colour shades
for sure and 256 with some difficulty.
This is to express the man's
visual limitations.
The black ant means that it
takes all the colours in with its pigments and leave us nothing to
see inside it except its outline in tiny visual forms.
That is for its protection to
indicate there are other form of life not only humans on this planet.
This tiny article is to
highlight the danger of plastics and fire.
Fire is a universal hazard, I
need not elaborate.
Plastic is a bigger hazard
than fire.
Fire is useful in converting
the things that are not bio-degradable to elements and oxides.
Plastics is a polymer without
an enzyme to break it bonds.
We can break it by burning
only at the expense producing toxic elements and reactive toxic
elements that deplete ozone layer.
Now coming back to another
risk of burning plastics and many plastic containers, they can
explode without any warning.
That is what happened to me.
I wanted to get rid of the one
week collection of perishables.
I took all the normal
precautions.
Dog was safely away and iron
fence locked.
All the papers sorted out.
All the plastic bottles washed
and dry and tops removed.
All the yogurt and ice cream
cartoons washed and no ants.
Then I set fire to the first
set and came back to the pantry to add few more remaining items.
That set was from my wife with
lot of ants in them.
I took it to the fire place
and was six feet (my risk taking distance) away from the burning
fire.
I started separating food
containing items with ants and items without ants to be put to the
the fire.
There was impending rain.
I was in a bit of a rush and
not paying attention.
Moment Meditation not taken care!
All of a sudden there was an
explosion.
My body not facing front on,
but the left side of the body got a shower of burning plastic
projectiles and the biggest one landed on my right forehand.
I did not have a bucket of
water near me.
I usually keep a tiny bucket
full of water for an emergency.
With the rain impending that
was not considered necessary.
by the time I reached the
water tap, the tiny explosive was firmly glued to my skin and the
skin burned to full depth.
There was a shower of tiny
plastic pellets on my head, hair, and the left side of the neck.
I stop counting.
I usually wear a short for
outdoor work.
With some luck I was wearing a
sarong.
Lot of tiny pellets had taken
shelter of my sarong and making tiny holes of forensic importance
imprinted for posterity, in case of an unexpected fire and I succumbed
to it.
For my luck the rain was
coming down.
I let the rain drops fall on
me with meditative attention.
If I was not focusing on the
tiny black ants, the shower of plastic pellets would ave been
directly on my eyes and I would not be writing this piece.
Who
says 'Bit of Metta' has no pace in this world of ours.
Even, the mother nature is
with you (rain in this case) if one is in harmony with the nature.
Half a our later when I was
brushing my hair, I noticed partially burned hair.
How fickle is the life on
earth for tiny beings, just like my partially burnt hair.
I would like to reflect on it,
now and in the future.
