Tai leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head and resting his feet on the coffee table. One week. One full week. His parents would be out of town for eight days (ten, they told him, if the resort was as nice as they expected), and he had the house all to himself. The whole neighborhood, really; almost all of the adults on his street worked during the day, and the only kids were the girl next door and her younger brother. As he recalled, they were visiting their relatives in the country.

The only other person who would be around at this time of day was the kooky old woman on the other side of the street. Tai hopped to his feet and strode to the front window. Two, three, four... There was her house, four doors down, the tiny amount of grass in front of it long and unkempt. The house was even older than its owner, and the roof seemed to sag dangerously in places. There had apparently been talk of having the place demolished, but the old bat refused to move out, and her ownership of the property predated any of the city's ordinances. Tai wasn't sure why that allowed her to get out of fixing the place up, but things had played out in her favor. In any case, she didn't seem to be around at the moment.

Tai considered his options. He would have the house to himself for at least a week, and since he was currently on summer break, he could do whatever he wanted. After discarding the idea of spending the day in the nude (he wasn't bold enough for that quite yet), something caught his eye. Tai walked to the window on the side of the house and stood, staring at the next-door neighbor's yard. Looking back at him were two small azalea bushes in full bloom, completely covered in obnoxiously bright pink flowers. He grinned. If there was a more appropriate display of freedom, he couldn't think of it.

After stepping outside and quickly surveying the street, Tai made his way over to the bushes and unzipped his fly. Despite being sure he was alone, the situation still had him nervous enough that it took a few seconds for the urine to start flowing. Once it did, however, he gleefully swayed his hips left and right, covering as many of the offending flowers as he could. It was minor mischief; even in the moment he knew that, but the illicit thrill of doing something you shouldn't made him feel invincible.

Tai continued peeing on the plants. It was nearly 11:00 a.m., but he had just woken up, and a night of celebratory soda drinking lead to a full bladder in the morning. A slight movement on the ground caught his eye. Tai leaned as far forward as he could without wetting himself, squinting. The movement was from a colony of ants, which had formed a miniature highway leading into a tiny crack in the foundation of the house.

"Hey hey, let's not be rude now," Tai said, turning toward the snaking like of insects. "You gotta be respectful toward your neighbors, you know? You wouldn't want to-" his stream made contact with the little creatures, and began washing them away "-bother anyone!"

"Well! That's not very nice, now is it?" a voice said from directly behind him. Tai jumped, half-turning in place. It was the weird old woman from down the street, balled fists resting against her hips. He hurriedly zipped up his fly, cursing under his breath, and turned to face her.

"I, uh... This is... I mean, they wanted... I was just..." Tai stammered, at a loss for what to say. "I'm... I'm sorry! Please don't tell anyone! It's just that these flowers are so bright and I can see them from my house and they were bothering me so I-"

"Oh, nobody cares about the stupid flowers!" the old woman snapped, tweaking her nose with a thumb. "The things are a damn eyesore. I'd be perfectly content to let you piss on 'em all day, if you wanted."

"S-so you won't tell my parents? Er... Or Mr. Date?" The owner of the house (and azaleas) would be far more upset than his parents in this matter.

"It's not them you need to apologize to!"

Tai waited for her to elaborate, but she just stood there, fists clenched against her hips. Tai didn't know much about the woman, but if he had to guess he would have pegged her as highly religious, with a screw or two loose where they were needed most. Whatever her background, she was clearly very angry.

"I... To who, then? Do you want me to apologoze to you? I'm sorry, I really am."

She leaned forward and poked him in the chest. "Not to me, you little brat! And you're only sorry about the fact that you got caught! No, it's the ants you should be apologizing to!"

Tai stared at her, then looked toward the base of the nearest azalea bush. His urine stream had managed to scatter the smaller pieces of mulch, and left a damp dent in the potting soil below. Ants were swarming the scene, scoping out the changes to the landscape and re-establishing their pheromone trails.

"...Apologize to the ants? Why? They're just bugs."

Tai could immediately tell that he had said the wrong thing. The old woman's eyes were wild, and her already messy gray hair suddenly looked like it was standing on end. "JUST BUGS?!" she cried, poking him in the chest again, this time painfully hard. "They may not be able to yell at you like Mr. Date can, but they're living things all the same! How would you like it if some jackass the size of the Empire State Building came through and pissed this street out of existence, huh?!"

Tai frowned. She did have a point... But, he told himself, individual ants don't care about anything, do they? They're all mindless drones serving the queen. Knowing that the ants were incapable of taking offense to his actions made it easier for Tai to discard what the old woman was saying. It also helped that she currently seemed completely out of her mind; if she told anyone about what he did, he could just deny it. She would probably be ranting about the rights of ants more than anything anyway.

"I... Whatever. Even if they did care, they'll all be dead in like a week anyway." He turned toward the street to walk home, but had only begun to take a step when the woman grabbed him by the arm.

"NOW LISTEN HERE!" she screamed, tugging on his arm and causing him to stumble back toward her. "You're really not sorry at all, are you?! No! It's because you lack perspective, that's what it is! Walk a mile in their... ant shoes, and you'd know what it is to be the downtrodden! Then you'd regret your actions, mark my word! What you need is to learn respect!"

Tai wrenched his arm free, cradling it like a baby and staring at her. "You're crazy, you know that?! The city couldn't kick you out, but let's see what happens when my parents hear about you ASSAULTING me! Maybe I'll even have a few more bruises by the time they get home!"

The old woman scowled. Saying nothing, she reached into the hem of her skirt and produced a gnarled Y-shaped wooden stick. Tai had no idea what it was supposed to be, but it looked like it was covered in tiny grooves, maybe some kind of symbols.

"Ka nke a na-amuta n'onodu, nke mere na o nwere ike ka ya onwe ya. Ike ka m jide iwu ya!" she chanted, her voice taking on a low and unfamiliar tone. The carvings on the old witch's wand glowed a bright emerald green, and Tai felt himself reeling backward, as if he were falling. In a matter of seconds, everything had gone dark.