the rise of the ants

Because she really wanted one, and because I generally like to think I’m a decent enough guy, I bought my girl an ant farm as a present last Christmas gone. It was a pretty exciting time in our little flat, feverishly awaiting the delivery of a big box all the way from Berlin, Germany, which would contain the structure of the two part ant farm, along with some extra sand, petri dishes for the distribution of foodstuffs, a bottle of specially formulated honey fluid and a couple of packets of dead crickets.

When it finally arrived she tore into the package while I was still at work and set it all up, although we didn’t have any ants to put in it yet, because we had to order them separately from a low-grade online English company (queen, workers and a few miniscule eggs). It felt quite hopeless having an ant farm on the table when it didn’t even contain any ants, like keeping the bed of a now dead dog in a central position in the living room, so once I got home we set to making sure the little bastards were sealed and delivered within the week.

It was more trouble than I can even begin to mention getting the ants out of the sealed test tube in which they had been delivered and into the ant farm. They were extremely reluctant to do it, no matter how much coaxing with good fresh honey or vigorous shaking we sent their way. Eventually, after seeking counsel with some serious ant geeks on the kind of bizarre forums that only the twenty-first century could come up with, we stuck them in the fridge for a while. This would make them drowsy, apparently, and they would lose their grip on the glass of the test tube and fall easily into the farm. I was doubtful, as I often am, and refused to have anything to do with the whole business, preferring instead to lounge around grumbling. But she pressed on, my girlfriend, with the determination of a kid at Christmas (which I suppose she was, although 22 doesn’t really count as standard kid age).

Still, she kept at it and the ants eventually succumbed, although we did lose one, crushed to insignificance by a poorly placed plastic lid.

The weeks passed without event until finally they dug a slightly embarrassing, little tunnel for themselves, really a shit effort. By this time I was thoroughly bored with them. As far as I could see they spent the entire day doing absolutely nothing, and not any of the supposedly intelligent things that ants are supposed to get up to in their so-called efficient communities. It was like I expected some kind of amazing ant circus, but I guess that’s just the stuff of dreams. My dreams. They didn’t look about, pick stuff up, goof around - they just sat there, around the queen, tending the eggs in ways far to small for a great lump of a crude human being like myself to even notice, let alone get excited about.

It was about this time, when the tunnel began its reluctant downward trajectory into the security of the sand, and a little nest area was established for the larvae to develop and grow, that I started swearing at the ants when I looked at them. I don’t know why, and now I think about it it does seem like a stupid thing to do. “Fucking ants,” I’d say, “don’t know shit.” The slightly repulsive smug superiority I couldn’t help but have in my tone of voice, recent graduate that I was, was completely unfounded, and wildly misguided, but it happened nonetheless, and whether I was proud of myself for trying to feel like the big man compared to a handful of little ants I couldn’t tell you, but sometimes these stupid things happen, no matter how stupid they are, and this thing proved to be really goddamn stupid.

You see, eventually the care of the ants was in my hands while my girl finished up her degree elsewhere, and after discussion with her we decided that, to recreate the warmth of the earth’s soil where they would usually be based - and thereby hopefully increasing the likelihood of the larvae bothering to hatch, which they still hadn’t done, despite it being May - we agreed to whack the whole farm into the airing cupboard for the night and see how things went.

So in I popped it, mumbling obscenities about the foolish ants and how the airing cupboard trick would make them believe as true something that was plainly false to any intelligent human man. I closed the cupboard door and decided to think no more about it, instead turning my attention to a lonely meal of potatoes and cheap fish.

Next morning I went off to work as always, fucking work, and forgot in my hurry to get the ants from the airing cupboard. When I remembered, way down the street, too far and too late to bother going back to rectify my slip of the mind, I figured they’d be alright anyway. I mean, it’s not that warm in there, and we haven’t got the heating on (in fact we haven’t even got heating, but that’s another story).

And so imagine my surprise when I got home and found a man-sized ant sitting in my contemporary rocking chair. No apology, no nothing - just sitting in my chair reading a newspaper (God knows where that came from - I refuse to keep newspapers in the house, for personal reasons). It looked at me without expression and said, in a bold, confident English:

“Ah, cunt. Make me tea.”

“Excuse me, ant,” I quickly retorted, “but this is my flat and that’s my chair. I don’t quite know what the hell is...” And then I twigged. THE AIRING CUPBOARD! Swallowing hard and panicking I edged backwards away from the gently rocking ant, but was stopped sharp by five more of them, each as tall as me.

“You heard him, you rotten little wanker,” one of them said. “Tea, for all of us. Make it. Now.”

They shoved me roughly into the kitchen. What else could I do? I put the kettle on and counted out as many mugs as I could find. I could hear them playing my records and dancing, shifting the furniture around to make more space. I was terrified. How many more of them were there? Where was the queen hiding? What did this mean for the world, as I knew it? Before I could answer these questions, even to myself, the kettle boiled and the ants started making a noise.

“Come on!”

“Get it made!”

“You’re a tosser, mate!”

I hurriedly poured the water over the teabags and went about the business at hand. The ants were laughing like drunken louts after a home game. I could hear what sounded like the head ant, who had been reclining in my chair, telephoning my work, explaining that I couldn’t come in tomorrow, or any other day in fact, because I was being held captive by man-sized ants.

“Yes, ants,” he shouted. “A-N-T-S, that’s right. Ants, you deaf fucking bitch.”

Even Melissa the administrator was powerless against these monsters, laughing again now, the phone smashing against the hard stone walls. I knew then, as even employment crumbled, the final bastion of civilization completely overruled by the cunning and intelligent dictatorship of the ants, I knew then that hope was gone for me. Lost. If I could just hold out until Kelly got back. She would worry about me, wonder why I hadn’t answered my phone, and then come back to investigate. Wouldn’t she? With her scientific mind she would think of something, I knew it, just whip up a quick antidote with the minor chemicals to hand in the flat (toothpaste and bicarbonate of soda) that would bring the ants back down to their regular size. Right?

Biting my tongue, then, I carried the hot tea into the living room. One of the workers knocked the almost boiling mugs of beverage from the tray in my hands, and the contents fell in a scalding mess down my frontage. I tried not to scream but it was hopeless. My skin burnt under the tea, my shirt only making it worse.

Since then I have been living with ants, under their control, passive, unquestioning, keeping my head down, counting the days until this might all blow over. I am their prisoner; they use me for every one of their cruel plans. I am not even safe from them sexually and I’ve been gang raped by more ants than I can count. It never stops. When they’re not fucking me they whip me, or taunt me. If I fall asleep they target me with minor electric shocks. If I make a mistake, of any kind, they beat me beyond comprehension. Even I do not feel human anymore. I can barely remember the world outside, can’t understand how it continues to move, unchanged, how normal life carries on, or even what normal life is. This is normal for me now. The world feels functions as anomaly. Is there anything left out there? I couldn’t guess.

I’m only able to write this now because they are busy wrestling in the bath, an activity that never ceases to amuse them. This is my obituary, perhaps, or one last stab at life, the outside world. A desperate plea before it’s all gone.

I’ve never been so afraid.

Will there ever be an end to this madness.

Ants. Everywhere. Ants.

I feel I should warn you.

The ants are coming.