Queen for a day

Once upon a time there was an ant colony.

In this colony there was an ant that wasn't entirely happy. You see he had a bend in his right antenna and his left rear leg was just a tad shorter than its' opposite. Besides what he secretly wanted to be was a warrior ant, maybe even an officer commanding the defenses of the colony.

So he went to school and studied war, went to a surgeon to get his antenna straightened and bought a special shoe to effectively lengthen his gimpy leg. He also studied the officer ants and compared himself to them constantly. Some had war scars, some had fuzz between their antennae some even had three chitins on their lower legs instead of the required four.

Unfortunately for the unhappy ant, he also had a valuable skill. He was great at digging chambers out. He could clear out a space for storage or a nursery in no time at all. He liked digging out chambers, loved the complements that he received, but he really wanted to man the defenses of the colony.

One day in a fit of despair he left his underground world of safe spaces and tunnels and ventured up and outside to the surface where he could look down on the community from above it all. He couldn't see down through the dirt but he knew every nook and cranny by heart and could picture each detail clearly in his mind.

Just then a hunter, (human), came walking through the woods looking to kill a deer. And, you guessed it, stepped on the unhappy ant and smashed him flatter than a pancake. This upset the ant terribly. But, as fate would have it, with the hunters' next step he stepped on the battlement defenses of the colony and the ant found that now his war scars were bloody and both his defective three chitin legs were broken clean in two, but that wasn't the worst of it. The weight of the uncaring hunter had pressed down to the nursery and crushed three of his chambers, which were full of eggs just ready to hatch. With daring and strength she rushed over to her nursery mates and signaled each their task to perform hurriedly - to save the remaining eggs.

As he struggled to break out of his egg, simultaneously holding a dispassionate view, seeing the first crack shiver up the outside of his egg, the ant thought whimsically of his contempt for the workers, his pride in his warriors, the bravery of his nursemaids - and resolved determinedly that this time he would be a queen and no one, not even a hunter would stop him this time.

Updated Nov 21, 2003