The Ant and the Antelope one day were sunbathing on the grass side by side nary a worry in this world as they had just finally eloped from the obligations of the path with their past family obligations of shoulds, woulds, have-tos. And were in fact both free now to live a little their own way unfettered and unbound by what once was.

And so on their backs they lay. And reminisced about the past of how hard they were done by by their old world, by all the new world of opportunities they had all both missed because of what they had been tied to, as well as all the ant and antelope people that they could blame for their misfortunes and misdeeds.

On and on they lay there amidst the glorious grass and sun basking in the truth of their now newfound freedom and they both continued to laugh and trade stories about their past.

They met every day for the rest of their newfound lives in this way, speaking of the past, grieving about the misdeeds, and STOP.

“Hey Ant..you’re looking older today.” Says the Antelope to the Ant.

And the Ant stops abruptly mid tirade of the past and say to the Antelope,

“Why you good sir too look older as I do indeed!”

“Where did the time go? What have we been doing?” They admitted as they looked around them in a daze, at the sun, at the grass beneath and around them.

“I only got to sunbathe!” exclaimed Antelope

Ant: “No you didn’t. You and we both got a chance to talk about our past and blame everyone in it that we did not get our tough or big break.”

Antelope: “But we did get our tough or big break! We’re lying here right now enjoying it!”

Ant: “Doing what?”

Antelope: “Why doing what we love to do best: Living in the past and blaming others for why we’re not given a chance.”

Ant: “But there’s no one else around us to blame but the two of us!”

“No that’s not true.” Antelope shakes his head wisely and continues

“They live on in our heads and in the stories we share with each other. This is what I love to do with the freedom that I’ve worked so hard to be given. I love to live in the past.”

Ant: “But we didn’t need to leave all that behind to come here to keep doing it did we?”

Antelope: “Yes we did. How can we continue to blame them…”

and then in mid sentence they died peacefully into a permanent slumber.