Before we start I will state our destination.  Our destination must not be the station.  Our destination is not the issue.  In summary the issue is the trip, not the destination.  We trip on the doorstep,

...and suddenly find ourselves closely observing the path. 

An ant crosses the path purposefully.  For the ant, the trip is not the issue.  For the ant, the issues are the purpose and the destination.  The ant does not think, as  we do, “thank goodness I am not an ant!”  It does not think, as we do: “ If I were an ant the journey home would take forever!”   The ant’s purpose is to find food, and return it to the colony.  The ant is not given to purposeless cogitation, and it is without hesitation or purposeless exclamation that it begins to climb our arm at the elbow in search of food. 

We must begin again.

We begin again.  The doorstep is behind us.  We will think no more of the doorstep.  We will think, occasionally of the destination, and we will unavoidably think of the trip.  But we will not trip again, because we will pay close attention to the terrain.

Gravel. Gravel,  Gravel.  We will never again grovel on the gravel.  Grovelling on the gravel is not us.

A burglar, once he has stepped on the gravel, once he has stepped off the flagstones, and through the gate cannot convincingly state, under cross examination, that his destination was anywhere other than the house, and that his purpose was anything other than burglary.  Gravel is an enemy to the burglar, and a friend to those of friendly purpose.  My only hope, as an apprehended burglar would be to state a friendly purpose.  Or make a run for it.

Once on the flagstones, a new question arises.  Which direction to take to avoid apprehension?  This is a thorny issue.  The destination is the hideout, and the purpose is to avoid apprehension.  These may lie in different directions.  But the decision must be made quickly.  We must not cogitate, nor think of the path.  We must not think, wistfully, that compared to the flagstones, the path was a bed of roses without thorny issues.  We must not reflect, that on the path, at least, the destination and the purpose were the same.  In short, we must run up the path, away from the house, towards a place that dimly we apprehend as a place in which we will not be apprehended.  But the path is all too

short, and we are now faced with a decision.

For the ant, the situation is more complex, but the decision is more straightforward.  Once he stepped upon the gravel, the burglar’s situation is utterly and irrevocably changed.  He is no longer an innocent treader upon the flagstones.  His purpose (burglary) has been apprehended, and, his identity is now that of a burglar avoiding apprehension.  For the ant, the situation is also changed, but there is nothing utter or irrevocable about it.  For the ant, his destination and purpose has remained unchanged.  Even the terrain (the burglar’s elbow) is the same. 

And yet, at the very same moment that the burglar pauses, undecided, on the flagstones, the ant also feels the need to pause, in the valley between a tautly distended muscle and a protruding bone, at the very point of articulation in the burglar’s elbow.  The situation, he feels, has changed, but in a way which is beyond his apprehension.  The terrain is unchanged, but it is unstable.  In one direction it looks distinctly hairy.  The burglar’s forearm is indeed distinctly hairy.  Moreover, the hairs on the burglar’s forearm are standing up, reflecting physiological mechanisms deep within the burglar, related to feelings of apprehension concerning his potential imminent apprehension.   The burglar apprehends that his apprehension would make his destination the station.  The police station.

At the very same moment, both the burglar and the ant come to a decision.  The burglar has decided that both directions are equally hairy, but the hairiest place of all, is the place in which he has decided to pause.  In fact, it is the pause itself that is hairy.  There is no such thing as pauses that are not hairy.  In a pause, apprehension is inevitable.

The ant has more to go on.  Something deep within the ant tells him that although his destination has remained the same, he now has two purposes.   The original purpose is to find food and return it to the colony.  The new purpose is to survive.  He senses that the pause will not be endless, and he perceives also that the burglar’s forearm is not endless.   Beyond the burglar’s forearm is an equally hairy hand, and beyond that is a void.  It is deep within the ant’s nature to avoid a void.  Although the ant knows deep within him that beyond the void is the path, and beyond the path is the colony, he also knows deep within him that voids are hairier than forearms, and that upper arms are less hairy than forearms.   

The ant has made the right decision.  The burglar’s forearms, flailing up and down as he runs, are now moving in a much more violent way than his upper arms.  The elbow, where the ant paused, is the point of articulation at which the movement on of the arms changes.   The violence of the forearm’s movement would have projected the ant into the void.  By comparison, the upper arm is relatively still, and the shoulder, towards which the ant is now foraging, is stiller still.  The upper arm, compared to the forearm, is a bed of roses with relatively few thorny issues.  Besides, the forearm and the upper arm are proceeding in an easterly direction with equal velocity away from the colony.  If the ant were the burglar, and the burglar the ant, the burglar might pause at this moment to congratulate himself, but as we know, the ant is not given to purposeless pauses, nor speculation about the future.  Unfortunately, the burglar is given to both.

Why does an ant avoid a void?  Because an ant knows deep within himself that as long as his feet are in contact with a surface, no matter how hairy, he has a chance of reaching his destination.  The burglar has a much more muddled apprehension of the situation.  For him, everywhere seems equally hairy.  The flagstones are hairy, the kerb is hairy, the tarmac is hairy.  The steps leading to the train station are hairy.  The train carriage would be extremely hairy, because entering a train carriage would be to enter a kind of pause, and pauses are always hairy.   Even the hideout may be hairy.  The burglar longs for a void.  In a void, the burglar apprehends safety from apprehension.  But the burglar, unlike the ant, cannot apprehend the void, only long for it.

The burglar (and the ant) turn a corner, and find themselves in a precinct, among a crowd of shoppers, all of whom are walking innocently on some carefully designed smooth paving.  The police are behind the burglar, passing the gravel path.  In his muddled way, the burglar apprehends that he made the right decision, back there on the flagstones.  If he had run in the other direction, the police would have been in front of him.  He would have been running, in fact, towards the police station.

The area is pedestrianised.  Which is to say it has been the subject of pedestrian infestation.  The burglar slows to a walk.  The paving is smooth, made to a specification which will inhibit tripping.   When he walks among the crowd, the burglar feels himself to be an innocent treader upon paving, going about his business with a modest and lawful purpose, and a destination so mundane as not to be remarked upon, never mind cross examined.  The burglar’s objective is now to assume the expression of a shopper, that is to say a person with a mild desire and a confident expectation of its satisfaction.  There is no danger of tripping, as the paving has been made to facilitate window shopping, or not looking where you are going.  He takes the liberty of cross-examining himself: “where are you going?”, he asks himself, and answers, with a smirk “I’m not going anywhere.  I’m coming back”.  We are no longer a burglar.  We will think no more of the act of burglary.  We will be just like everyone else, that is to say, just a little bit guilty, and only temporarily.

We would like to walk in this pedestrianised precinct forever, but we cannot.  It would attract attention.  Attention will inevitably lead to apprehension, and our destination would be the station.  We must find a new surface to walk upon.

Grass.  Green glossy grassy grass.  Our feet leave little indentations, but the grass soon springs back, each one arching forward in a little bow of forgiveness.   In gratitude for this we avoid shady areas and damp areas where the grass may be a little less flexible and hardy.

Here the grass is longer.  We avoid a path cut into the grass by another walker.  We make our own path.  What greater expression of innocence is there than to strike out?  To stick your neck out.   Cross examine us all you will.  We are innocent walkers and strikers out in long grass.

(fx: sound of a mobile ringing in a pocket)

The mobile is ringing.  It will be the wife. 

The wife often rings at this time to make an arrangement concerning the kids. Painfully, we are separated from the wife.  This separation is not irrevocable, but it is utter.  We are joined by arrangements, but not by vows.  We suspect that the wife knew of the burglaries, but chose not to mention them.  We suspect that this decision not to mention them was the point at which the separation became utter.  

We put the phone to our ear.  The hand holding the phone is the one that is attached to the upper arm upon which the ant is now foraging.

The ant apprehends that beyond the hand there is no longer a void.  In fact, the arm, hand, mobile phone, ear, neck and shoulder now form a kind of track around which it might forage endlessly, like a shopper in a pedestrianised precinct.  The ant crawls onto the mobile phone, and quickly discovers a crumb of bread squashed into a gap in the casing.   The ant’s purpose has been achieved.  It bites the crumb with its mandibles.

The bread from which the crumb was taken is on the kitchen table.

We press button to receive the call.  It is not the wife.  Moreover, it is not our mobile phone.  It is the mobile phone we picked up from the kitchen table of the house we were burgling.  The one with the gravel path and the doorstep upon which we tripped when we were called upon to stop.  The phone has the same ringtone as our own, which is still in our pocket.

It is too late.  We have already pressed the button that connects us with the owner of the mobile phone.  The path between us is open.

There is a man heading towards us through the grass, also cutting a path.  The man is not smiling, and although it is hard to tell for sure, he seems to be looking at us with an expression that implies judgement.  We subtly change trajectory to avoid joining our path with his, but note with apprehension, that as we do so, the judge also changes his trajectory, and is now again on course to join our path.  The judge is preceded by a German Shepherd, which is forging a narrower path in front of him.

The woman on the mobile phone is now interrogating us.  She clearly apprehends she is speaking to a burglar, and does not mince her words.

We wish for cut grass, with forgiving stalks.

Behind us, a man and a woman have entered the path we have made through the long grass.  They are young, show an easy familiarity with one other, and have cheap haircuts.  They are clearly plain-clothes police officers.

We can stand this situation no longer.  We throw the incriminating mobile phone as far as we can into the long grass.  The  judge forges towards us, preceded by the German Shepherd.  The police officers cut off our retreat.

We wish for safety or a void.  Apprehending that there is no path that will take us there, we lie down in the long grass, imagining that we will find what we wish for, if only temporarily.

The mobile phone flies through the air.  The ant, perceiving that beyond the mobile phone there is now again a void, clings with its mandibles to the crumb of bread squashed in the gap in the casing. The owner of the mobile phone continues to accuse the burglar, unaware that she is merely accusing an ant who has other things on his mind.  The mobile phone lands in the longest part of the long grass with a damp crunch,

which the owner of the mobile phone takes for momentary interference.  She makes a final threat and accusation, and takes the burglar’s silence as an admission of guilt.  The crumb of bread is dislodged by the impact and is now firmly in the ant’s grasp.

The German Shepherd has seen the mobile phone flying through the air, and apprehending it as an invitation to fetch, bounds through the long grass towards the place it has landed.

The ant steps off the mobile phone carrying the crumb of bread.  It apprehends that is not near the colony.  It apprehends, further, that the stems of tall grass, like hairs, will impede its journey to the colony.  Nevertheless it begins the journey without hesitation.

The burglar stares up at the sky.  The long stalks of grass afford a semblance of safety, but in the blue sky above he apprehends both a void, and his utter  and painful separation from it.  He shuts his eyes and listens to the sound of footsteps in the grass.

(fx: sounds of footsteps in the grass)

The burglar was under a misapprehension.  The man and the woman were not police-officers, but office-workers and lovers.  Apprehending that before them on the path was a man lying down, they imagine him to be an alcoholic or a poet, or both.  An encounter with either would spoil their lunch hour.  Without conferring, they have forged a new branch path of their own, which curves around the burglar.  Forging a new path gives them a shared feeling of purpose which is so delicious that both of them feel deep within themselves a desire to propose marriage.  The Judge is not a Judge, but a local politician, who feels a strong sense of responsibility concerning  mental health issues and related   problems of vagrancy and delinquency in his ward.  He feels deep within himself that he should avoid an encounter with those so afflicted until he has found a viable solution.  His path now also curves around what has become not the burglar’s place of apprehension, but his place of misapprehension.

The burglar hears a damp crunch next to his ear. 

He opens his eyes and apprehends two hairy paws.  The German Shepherd pauses, waiting for the mobile phone he has just dropped to be thrown again.

The burglar looks at the paws.  The paws are hairy, but they are friendly.

The burglar suddenly apprehends the paws as a portent. He will think no more of safety, or of the void, but only of redemption.   Suddenly, dimly, and deep within himself, the burglar realises that everywhere is equally hairy and equally safe.

The local politician calls the German Shepherd, who bounds away through the long grass.  The paws have gone, and with them, the burglar’s indecision.

The burglar picks up the mobile phone, stands, and retraces his steps along the path he has made, soon finding himself on the short forgiving grass.  The burglar does not need forgiveness, for he is on a path to redemption.  He similarly declines the invitation to window-shop from the smooth paving.  Ahead of him he sees only the flagstones and the gravel, upon which, ant-like, he steps without hesitation.

He walks with friendly purpose on the gravel.  His destination is the doorstep.  He stands upon the doorstep and rings the bell.

The ant will now search for a trail of pheromones left by other ants (or by himself) that will lead to his colony.  He does not apprehend, as we might, the huge distance between himself and his colony.  If he could apprehend it, he would not apprehend it, as we might, as a void, for his feet are on a surface, and he therefore has a chance of reaching his destination.  If he doesn’t find a trail of pheromones, he will die trying. This, as far as we can so far apprehend, is the ant’s situation.  He is neither lost, nor in paradise.

No answer.  The burglar posts the mobile phone through the letter box, and without fear of apprehension, nor desire for forgiveness, safety or a void walks purposefully back across the gravel.

(sound of footsteps on gravel, then on flagstones.  The footsteps turn, and continue)

Upon reaching the flagstones, he does not hesitate, but reaches into his pocket and dials the wife on his mobile

phone, turning instinctively, not in the direction of the hideout, but home.