The night was coming. Though the sun was still a large orange fruit on a moody red platter, it was the sign for most beings of their day coming to an end.
The rule was simple: stay out after dark and you risk losing your life.
Still, many creatures, both big and small, die every night: some for separating from their herds, and others for stalking the darkness for a little life-threatening adventure.
One among them was a worker, an oddball of an ant, who would see his life change by the end of the day; just not the way he had expected it to. That worker was me before the change, before the awakening of my greed.
As for the moment, while the sun was still up and the outside temperature a mellow 23 degrees Celsius —though dropping— the worker was busy digging underground. The lone wingless princess of his city had demanded a chamber be dug underground and the union had responded. Three hundred workers worked day and night to carve a series of veins and arteries to connect the digging site with the city —both of which were a good few feet underground.
The three square meters large floor was being dug parallel to the city Agnee-rath-Ji — a personal space for the queen to be. That was her only option as a wingless princess, to be a secondary queen and spurt more life into the already bludgeoning veins of the main city.
While other workers were busy digging through the solid thick dirt, scraping a new path grain by grain, our little worker was being intelligent. He carried an abdomen full of water to dampen the dirt while digging, not only making his job easier but also reducing the strain on his mandibles.
Dampening the dirt also helped him in clearing the tunnel faster; because where the other workers carried individual grains of dirt, he could compact them and make a pellet to increase workflow.
However, he wasn’t a vain being. He had shown his method to just about everyone other than the supervisors, but instead of being praised, he was criticized by the workers. He didn’t lose hope and presented his idea to the workers union, hoping to revolutionize the force, but was questioned by them instead.
You want the workers to work harder? Have you no shame?
In the end, they told him to complete the duration of his community labor and go away but also warned him to not create problems for them or he would be ousted from the workers union. That basically meant becoming an outcast. He bent but decided to push back by keep digging his way.
As a result, he was far ahead of his pears and making them look bad.
It was hard work, digging, requiring much endurance and focus. Yet, that’s what made a worker different from a soldier and a constructor different from a caretaker. However, it was also an easy life, a safe living, and heavily sought by ex-scavengers and harvesters.
While working ahead, thinking about his upcoming days of no more community labor, open fields, and warm sunshine, our little guy got careless and chomped a bit too hard at the wrong time. He struck something strong. It was probably a pebble, like the hundred others found daily, but the pain that shot up his face from the base of his left mandible was something new. It was aggravating and horrifying. Pheromones of pain and warning, of danger and need, shot out of his antennas and filled the tunnel he had dug. He waited and waited but no one arrived to help. Not helping him carry larger pebbles was one thing, but to deny help when he was in pain? He found it unbelievable.
Sometime later, when the pain subsided, he carefully dug the pebble out. It was a small thing and only the size of his head, large enough to completely fit his mandibles, but small enough that leaving it there and diverging from the path would lead to problems with the authority. The supervisor would chew him inside out.
So hurt as it may, he decided to take the pebble out and seek help. Trash heap it was. The wingless princess was generous he admitted. Those working under her had meat and water and honey at their disposal, things usually reserved for the soldiers. He was sure she would let him rest for the night, believing a night's rest would stop the pain. He hoped at least because there was no other option. He either recovered completely to enjoy the life of a harvester or forced into slavery to be thrown out as a shield at the front line in a time of war. The latter was an option he would stake his life to survive.
The pebble he dug out was an unusual dull orange, shaped like a raindrop with a surface glow. It couldn’t be a rock or just a large granule of dirt because it was uncharacteristically warm to touch. So warm in fact that his limbs relaxed like they do when basking under the sun. Strength filled his limbs and the pain reduced further. He lifted the smooth pebble in a single swoop and headed up the path that had become smooth from constant use. It wasn’t a long walk, but he remained careful despite the strength, and confidence surging inside him. Even a small mistake can deal a large blow: he had learned the lesson by trying to be helpful.
Out of the tunnel, he saw his first fellow in hours. Our little guy released a happy greeting. But the worker wasn’t so happy to see him.
They looked alike, both of them: the same shape and almost the same size. They both had a jet black body from the tip of their antennae to the end of their segmented abdomen with hints of red flakes here and there like embers lying in a pile of ash.
Hence the name: Ember ant.
At half a centimeter large, they were big among the many other species of ants that lived nearby — at least that’s what our little worker had heard in stories from ex- scavengers and harvesters, while they still talked to him.
That being said, how to approach the princess was a big question he hadn’t yet the answer to. He was in this state of contention when he sensed a scent sweet and strong, attracting him from the other end of the tunnel. He knew the scent. It belonged to the princess. Even being sexless couldn’t stop him from becoming muddle-headed after being washed in her arousing scent. The closer he approached the end of the tunnel, the heavier his mind swayed.
His antennae stood erect in front of his head to greedily take in more of her natural sweetness. It was not every day that a worker got to bathe in the scent of a princess. She was a different breed of ant, with a different set of responsibilities. Workers were aplenty in their colony of two hundred thousand, but there were only five hundred princesses, and not a single one of them were allowed to roam more than a few floors near their chambers.
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This wingless princess was special, for she could roam the city at will. And she meant business.
The princess was polite most of the time but could be strict when necessary. There was a pheromone called leave pass that she had invented to make sure no worker would bunk community labor. Many workers called her narcissistic for trying to steal their freedom. The little guy considered her intelligent. It was the perfect thing to deal with lazy workers, he believed.
There were times when he almost brought his method to her, but the fear of being outcast always pulled him back.
He found her in the chamber at the end of the tunnel. She was standing with her antennae coiled around those of her ward, deep into internal communication. That was an honor that none in attendance deserved. What she needed to convey must have been very important; otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone to such lengths, and chosen such an intimate form of communication.
Believing that he shouldn’t interrupt their communication the little guy moved to one side and stood there. He watched them intently but so did the others. There were close to twenty ants in the chamber, many workers, two soldiers, and the sergeant of worker division who was likely waiting for his orders.
The sergeant was a giant being, the bulkiest in the chamber. The soldiers appeared small in front of him. The giant approached him and the little guy stiffened. Workers were lower than the soldiers in rank, and it could be seen the difference in their demeanors. The giant was confident, his steps wide and pompous, while our little guy was stiffened still from awe.
Just one more day and we’ll be similar in rank, he little guy thought as the giant stopped in front of him.
The giant tapped his head, asking what he was doing there while reading his designation: worker said the first segment of his antennae, number 5996 (5th gen, 6th lay, number 99) told the second one, on the 31 days of community labor, came from the third segment.
The little guy answered: to talk with the princess about leave — Direct and affective. The sergeant was neither surprised, nor angry. The guy was on his last day of community labor. And if he remembered correctly, it was this guy giving a bad name to the workers union by working too hard. The sergeant didn’t despise hard workers. He nodded and allowed the little guy to stay, which he did by putting the pebble on the ground.
Right about then two soldiers entered the chamber from a different artery of the same digging site. They were dragging a worker behind them. The worker was agitated and shaking, releasing pheromones without control. She had most likely gone crazy working in the tight, humid site. It was easy to forget who you are while digging. Many even break down. Some said community labor was a test to see a worker's capability to handle pressure; others called it a form of tempering. For the little guy, it was but a passing route, nothing less and nothing more.
The crazy worker continued leaking her emotional state as the soldier dragged her. The little guy made himself comfortable. The sergeant moved away to check another worker that had come to ask for help.
The princess came out of I.C. And just as she did, the crazy worker slipped out her bounds and lunged at her. The sergeant was quick to act. It was lucky that he had gone to help the worker and coincidently met her on the way. He snapped his mandibles at her head to snip her life, but she was too small a worker and he was too big an ex-soldier. By the time he realized, she was past him.
The scent of panic rose from the soldiers beside him.
The princess was in a dazed state of mind from the I.C and didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. She stood a still target for the worker, completely unaware. But when the crazy worker's mandibles clipped, she found them wound around the mandibles of another worker and not the princess. The little guy held her off. The bout aggravated his injured mandible, but he didn’t let off. The crazy worker pulled back and their mandibles separated. A second time she came, but the sergeant had already recovered from his previous blunder. However, her mandibles wound around 99’s chest before the bulky ex-soldier managed to cut her head off.
By the time the soldiers separated the worker's head from the little guy’s chest he had already leaked a lot of warmth and was feeling cold. The ants released warning scents, as our guy staggered toward the princess. His mind was all rattled from the expenditure and the battle. She stood stock-still as he passed her and went toward the orange pebble. He dug into it again, his mind telling him to throw the trash out, looping it over and over again.
He squeezed the pebble with all his might and his left mandible finally gave away. It broke, while the right one punctured into the orange glowing gem. There he grew cold, but the voice inside his head grew strong instead. Throw out the trash. Refill your water. Only one more day of labor. Live. The voice echoed but wasn’t received by anyone living.
More soldiers arrived soon to figure out the reason behind the disturbance, but everything had been sorted out by then. The princess personally tried to revive the little guy by sharing some of her warmth and calories with him, but he didn’t move.
In the end, the soldiers who were carrying the crazy worker were reprimanded and the little guy was thrown out in the trash heap with the pebble still attached to his mandible. They couldn’t get it off him.
In the trash heap, he remained until night passed and the sun rose in the sky bringing casting rays of warm sunshine through a field of clouds.
One such ray found the gem, bringing it to life and causing it to glow. Its shine grew stronger and heavier, and madly it absorbed the sunlight, only to flash once and disintegrate. It disappeared, but not completely. A second later the same orange glow rose from the once dead ant. The glow died, but the ant stirred. Life returned to his comatose limbs like the season of spring after the onslaught of a cold harsh winter.
He moved. The twitch of a claw transformed into the coiling of his stiff-straight antennae. His legs stretched one by one, exoskeleton crackled as his body came into motion after the night of cold. The ray of sunlight enveloped him, bringing warmth to his cold body. His jaw moved. The lone curved mandible flexed, and light returned to his eyes.
It was a new day, and the start of a new life for the worker: my awakening.