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drop it off on the other side. The rhythmic splashing was both
miraculous and calming. I always wanted to go and watch the
wheel.
Of course, we never stayed by the wheel for very long.
Sometimes, Mom promised Daddy a pretzel too (I never wanted
to have his pretzel anywhere near me; he preferred his with
smelly yellow mustard), and we would have to make sure Daddy
got his pretzel before it grew cold. Sometimes, we would get
pretzels on our way to Grandma’s house, and there wouldn’t be
time to sit by the water wheel. Once in a while, I would experi-
ence what my mother kindly calls “natural curiosity” (though,
now, I might just call it excessive energy) and want to go “ex-
ploring.” I had a vivid imagination, and as a result, I was nearly
always looking for occasions to explore and play pretend.
One day, as we were finishing off our soft, salty pretzels
and watching the wheel, splash, splash, splash, my imagination
carried me to the back of the pretzel shop where I had noticed
a lone slab of concrete nearly concealed within the grass. Natu-
rally, five-year-old me had to investigate.
To this day, I don’t know what that slab of concrete was.
Maybe part of a broken-down sidewalk. Maybe a septic cover.
Maybe just a slab of concrete that someone had left behind the
shop. Whatever it was, I was fascinated by it. I became even
more fascinated when I saw the ants crawling all over it.
The sky must have been perfectly clear, the purest gleam of
cerulean, peeking through the layers and layers of flame colored
leaves. The leaves must have been swaying softly, permeating
the air with their unique autumnal smell, gracefully dancing
toward the ground to rest at our feet. The whole world, at that
one moment, must have been the picture of beauty. I wouldn’t
know. My five-year-old self didn’t notice anything other than the
ants. I had never seen so many of them at once. They swarmed
over the slab of concrete, darting about with a vim and vigor that
surprised, even awed, me. I wanted to see what would happen if

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