I watched a big ant carrying a large load up a tall wall. The ant fell and the load landed some distance from her. On the concrete, the ant made several passes as if in search of what it had lost or perhaps to find her scent trail. Curious about what she had been carting, I took a length of bark lying nearby to manipulate it. It appeared to be a dried out, whitened stink bug carcass or perhaps shed skin (do stink bugs shed their skin?), rather light, but quite a wide load for even the large ant. The ant still appeared to be searching for something and I moved the remains closer to her. It took a couple of scoots but as soon as it was about an inch or so away from the ant, the ant, seeming to recognize it immediately, pounced on it--in a move that appeared almost magnetized--with such obvious purpose and perhaps joy. I left her to her quest then and thought some thoughts about the experience. Persistence seems an obvious moral to glean from the experience. Never give up. Keep trying. An outside source intervened in this case. Writers can learn from this ant. We can be persistent about the work set before us. Getting help from others brings joy. Yes, we need readers. We need feedback. If we do it all for ourselves I guess we can provide that feedback to ourselves. But ants? They work for a whole community of other ants. I hope my writing will reach a community of readers.