The End of the Ants and the Start of Something New
on Fantastic Voyage (Nigeria), 15/Jun/2011 14:13, 34 days ago
Please note this is a
cached copy of the post and will not include pictures etc. Please
click here to view in original context.
It’s not as if there were no portents.He was able to dismiss the so-called Noise: an old wives tale that sprung up a couple of generations ago and inspired fear only in the grubs unformed enough to give it credence.But the light– that was a certain fact which occurred when he himself was still emerging, remembered distinctly by his father and grandfather.Still, those who used such incidents to fortell doom: they were fools and grubs, barely more advanced than the mould forests which formed the world around them.The Colony had thrived since its foundation, multiple generations in the past.A formerly inhospitable terrain of icy whiteness had become soft and fertile, with abundant food sources in every corner.He nodded grimly to himself as he passed some workers bringing in more loads.Soon, there would be no more of this foolish talk.The changes had begun already: the old female had been condemned to the endless water, and others like her would keep their idle stories still or find themselves in the same place.A shadowy era of legends and fears was ending and he would ensure the strength of his descendants was assured for all time.Even as he moved over the ridges, the best vantage point from which to survey the extended tentacles of the Colony’s influence, it happened.A distant throbbing that almost made his system beat faster until he noticed some young ones communicating fears that should never have been articulated.He hurried to them, gesticulating his fury, but was too late.From nowhere, from everywhere, light poured in upon him.In a fraction of a second, he was no longer the Commandant but merely one more panicked body, swarming to a place of safety.He was one of the first to fall: not to the light, nor yet to the noises that now swept across the soft, peaceful lines of the Colony.It was a great wave of sharp smelling liquid that took him, as it did his descendants and ancestors, mates, workers, and Queen.In less than the span of a generation, the Colony was no more.The great spaces were white again, its edges cold and sharp and barren.(This is the story I told myself as I cleaned our fridge, which hadevidently received no electricity for about four weeks.)
