By ten the oak had made a waiting room of its roots. Ants sat in a single polite row, each holding a ticket no larger than a crumb, while the park keeper shook a picnic cloth into place and called numbers in a whisper.
We asked at the kiosk across the path. “I thought they were lining up for jam,” said a woman with a thermos. “They were lining up to help. One of them waited for its number, then folded a napkin corner as if that were the whole appointment.”
A line in the keeper’s book, written very small: thank you for not stepping on row three; the cloth lies smoother when they take turns.
The next afternoon a boy came back with a spare ticket drawn in crayon. The ants made room. The keeper called him last, after the crumbs had been counted.