“I was ... thinking about something I killed once. An ant. His name was Fred. He was my friend ... but I burned him all up.”
Williams moved to speak but hesitated—it wasn’t just because he was both charmed and disturbed by her words. No, an image had come into his mind with a vividness that was startling: an image of a black ant crawling beneath the thick lens of a magnifying glass—a lens in which he discerned the reflection of a boy—and which had been positioned so that it caught the sun and focused its rays upon the insect, which caught fire and curled upon itself and was immolated as the boy watched. Then it was gone and he was left, despite the cruelness of the act, with a distinct feeling of euphoria. For the boy, he knew, was himself.
“Ank ...” He turned to face the ankylosaur incr
