Wednesday 8 September 2010

Fire Ant Fire Dance

Back in my days with the fire ants I was a ravager.
The bodies of crickets, the bodies of mice, bodies of
other, weaker ants. We had rituals for these things,
songs and chants and traffic through our underground mazes
was its own rhythm, its own catharsis.
Things were heavy often, the weight of a load nearly crushing
my thorax but I only ever had one at a time and I knew which
direction to walk with it. Through grains of sand that twitched
my antennae. Clods of dirt as big as my head. We owned the yard.
The blades of grass. Swarmed rocks until no grey stone left,
just the thousands of us, in our glory.
Then the child came, big and fat and stupid with hard treaded
feet, stomped our mounds. The elders fled. Tunnels
collapsed, the temple destroyed and the queens crushed under
relentless stamping.

But you should see what we did to that kid's leg.

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