Ceremony

The bullet ants were in the bamboo gloves before the drums began.

Behind his face paint, the boy was stoic.

For now, his mother and father were proud.

After slipping on the gloves, for a moment he allowed himself a naive thought— they might not bite. A child’s hopeless dream. The painful reality crashed in waves so incessant, they became a melody.

He almost forgot the man he was meant to become.

The gathered tribe stared. Racked by the jungle’s strongest sting, the boy turned convulsions into rhythmic rocks.

Soon he was dancing, stomping his boyhood coil into the dirt.