As kids, we always got asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Almost every one of my friends wanted to be a police inspector, and if they had a little imagination, a fighter jet pilot. I didn’t see the appeal in either of these things. They sounded like really boring life choices.

It’s not like I knew what I wanted to be; until I heard the story of the invisible man. A scientist makes a serum that turns him invisible. I went — Yes! That’s what I want to be.

I wanted to be a scientist who’d make a serum to turn myself invisible. I didn’t have a plan for what I’d do after that, but I was six; real life was boring and invisibility was not. That was enough.

For a week I went around telling every adult I could find that I was going to become a scientist. They were impressed. If they knew the science I was planning, they wouldn’t have been, but they didn’t, so they were.

It was a lot of work.

Week two — I decided I didn’t have to wait to grow up. I could start right now. So I gathered all the chemicals I could find in my house. Chemicals like perfumes, talcum powder, pickle, cold cream, water. I dumped them in a tiny steel bowl and stirred.

Then I went straight to animal testing. Even at that age I was like — fuck animals, we’re better than them, let them suffer so we don’t have to. I dropped a couple of ants in the bowl and waited for them to turn invisible.

These ants, they just swam to the edge of the bowl and crawled out. And I could see them. What a disappointment. I tried to convince myself that the serum would take time. They’d turn invisible in an hour. If I didn’t see any ants in an hour, it would mean that my serum had worked.

No, even I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. So I quit the science life and became an ordinary person.

But I changed the life of those ants that day.

(I’m reasonably certain) the ants looked up at the sky, at some point of time, and screamed -

Why? We were marching around, following pheromones to food or home. We had purpose. Then we’re suddenly floating in muck. Where is the dignity in all this? What was the point of all this?

I didn’t make invisible ants that day, I made existentialist ants.