Once upon a time, there was an ant named Saskatchewan. One day, it occurred to him that he was tired of being an ant. So he left his anthill, along with his 100,000 relatives and friends, and went off to see what else there was for him to be.

He tried to be a grasshopper. He painted himself green, and coiled himself up to jump with all his might. He hurtled through the air and landed about a quarter of an inch from where he’d started – less than his own body length. He tried all afternoon, but he just got more and more tired, until he couldn’t even get off the ground anymore. When the green paint began to wear off, he took it as a sign, and moved on.

He tried to be a centipede. He spent three days fashioning extra legs from tiny twigs and pieces of grass. But, try as he might, he couldn’t get them to work properly, and he couldn’t get them to attach to his body. He took days to heal from some of the attempts to attach them. When he gave up, he decided he was also dead set against trying to be a millipede.

So Saskatchewan kept moving, finding food where he might as he traveled between grass and trees, under fences, past the vast and mysterious dwellings of the humans. He thought about being a human, but he couldn’t stand on his hind legs, and had too many legs, anyway.

He also thought of being a dog – an easy life, he thought; humans fed them, sheltered them, and cherished them. He made some floppy ears and a tail out of grass, and frolicked around, making a tiny squeak in his best imitation of a bark. For the most part, however, he couldn’t even get a human’s attention – and, the one time when he did, he escaped being squashed by an enormous leather-covered foot by only the narrowest of margins. He decided to stay out of the human world, and not be any animal associated with humans.

Saskatchewan was becoming very discouraged. As he wandered, he began to make fewer and fewer attempts to be something else. But, one day, he came upon a hill of red ants. He paused to watch them, still unseen himself. How happy they seemed! Being a black ant himself, he had never thought about how the red ants lived. But these red ants went merrily about their duties, each doing his or her part to keep the hill well built and well fed.

He couldn’t exactly put a feeler on what the difference was between this red colony and the black one he had left behind. They did not even give any outward sign that they were happier, unless it was in some subtlety in their movement. But Saskatchewan did not think to question his impression. The red ants were happier, and he knew it. And he wanted to be one of them. Maybe, he thought, he had simply been tired of being a black ant.

He also didn’t think to find red paint for himself, but his first meeting might have gone better if he had. He walked up to introduce himself to the hill. Just as he was about to greet one of the ants hauling food toward the hill’s small opening, he recognized a change in the behavior of the ants. The change rippled through the crowd like a wave. It triggered an alarm within Saskatchewan, himself.

“Intruder!” he thought to himself. He looked around to find the intruder – by the nature of the alarm, another insect, about ant-sized, who would make off with their food or a few ants if not dealt with instantly. This, he thought, was a perfect opportunity to prove himself to the new hill. He had traveled far, and he had become resourceful and strong. All he had to do was find this intruder and attack it.

Before he had time to think further, six red ants fell upon him and began to tear and bite at him savagely. One of his legs was bent to nearly the breaking point, and the pincers on one ant were ready to break through his tough outer skeleton. Saskatchewan had to move very quickly, and, despite the resourcefulness he had just been reflecting on, barely escaped with his life. He threw off his attackers, and then fled as quickly as he could on four good legs, fending off red attackers as they caught up. Finally, he passed an invisible line, and the red ants broke off their pursuit. Saskatchewan collapsed in a heap, and did not move for a long time.

When he did move again, he almost wished that he couldn’t. He walked because he had nothing else to do. He felt very foolish. He, himself, had been involved in protecting his hill from intruders, and a good number of them had been red ants. He should have known it would be no different with a black ant approaching a red hill. But his foolishness was only the tiniest part of what bothered him. It was finally beginning to hit him that he could never stop being an ant. If he couldn’t even be a red ant, what were his chances of being a squirrel or a spider? He was an ant, and he could never, never change that.

So he walked on. His legs healed, but he didn’t really care. When he found food, he ate halfheartedly. He’d found many types of food he had never known about before, and had found many others that it was best to avoid. He walked on for days, or months, or years; he had no way to know, and no reason to mark time. The scenery changed around him; there were fewer houses and fences, and more trees. Still, he took little note.

He passed many anthills along the way, too. He gave the red ants a wide berth, and all the other anthills seemed just like the one he’d left, as if he had never gone anywhere. But, one day, Saskatchewan happened upon a struggling anthill. There couldn’t have been more than a few hundred ants, and they appeared to be starving. They were also walking right past all kinds of food, more than they could possibly eat. He was puzzled by this until he remembered that he hadn’t known about most of this food before his travels.

So he plucked a bit of what was most plentiful, approached a nearby ant, and ate the food. A group of ants gathered around and stared. They each tried some, and then promptly formed a trail to carry food back into the hill. He had made quite a first impression, and a good one, this time.

There were so many things these ants didn’t know, and so many ways he could help them that he decided to stay for a while. In the end, he made that colony his home, and was their chief food-finding scout, in addition to being a leading defense strategist. The colony grew and prospered. In his new home, were so many different things for him to do that he never got tired of being an ant again.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 5:52 AM and is filed under Finished Works. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.