“We have ways of making you talk.”
Jim Henson* #quote
CJ's probably going to come over for the weekend so that'll most
likely be funtastic. Anyway onto the flash fiction!
Number 210,101
Rain flooded the anthill where little Number 210,101(as the queen
named her) the worker ant lived. The nest survived the flood but the
waters dragged Number 210,101 away, far, far away. So far a miracle
or two must have let her survive. When the flood water receded she
found herself on a blade of grass in a vast field. Not a thing in her
little ant sight. The flood water flushed out any scents. It also
washed away all the previous sensory commands. Any smells she
received from other ants, gone. All the tiniest bits of dirt from her
nest washed away. Number 210,101 only had herself and the blade of
grass.
For the first time she didn't have anything to-do. Work-sleep. The
life of an ant. The water dazed her. Could she recognize the queen?
Surely she could. No, when she half-drowned some of the few brain
cells in her body were damaged and the things she would need to
identify the queen were gone.
She was an ant with only herself. Number 210,101 then thought of a
human word it overheard while stealing from a picnic. Something the
ant-language didn't really have. “I”. Ants always called each
other by “that ant” or “this ant” or by their name. She came
up with an ant way to express “I” in the ant language.
Then Number 210,101 said to herself all alone on that blade of grass
with no one to tell her what to do, “I want to go that way.”
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