It was a night in August when Susan became an ant. Ed found her on the pillow in the morning, he smelled the pillow; it smelled of Susan.

"Suze?" Ed said. Of course, she didn't reply, just waved her antennae as ants do.

It had been a dreadful year for ants. They'd tried everything with varying degrees of success, sprays, boiling water, powder. But now, of course, things had to change. Ed persuaded her onto a white saucer and chose a bright nail varnish from her dressing table. Then with a single hair from his own head he marked his wife with a mote of "New Dawn."

Ed took her outside to the terrace where he put her onto the soil in a large pot containing a slow-growing cactus, one they'd brought back from honeymoon in Acapulco. No matter what they did, there were always ants in that pot.

Now, sometimes, when Ed's reading on the terrace, he finds himself watching these ants. Sometimes he sees his wife. She is always busy; always going somewhere.