The Worried Ant
The ant has a family and he worries about them constantly. He worries he'll get squished before he's able to fully provide for them. Or, worse, that they'll get squished before he gets squished, and then his short life won't have any more purpose.
Everything he does is with his family in mind. Every morsel he comes across and hefts back to their lair even though it weighs twice what he weighs is for his family, not himself. He has no life ambitions, or I suppose you could say that his family is his one life ambition.
Every so often he wanders out in twilight to the Great Sea and is sensuously overwhelmed. He thinks it might be nice to float on his back and breathe lightly and let his legs sort of flail uncontrollably with the wind and drift in whatever direction it is that the Great Sea drifts. Or maybe this Great Sea drifts to an even Greater Sea, he thinks. And maybe that Greater Sea is just a speck that, to some other being, is just as small as he thinks he is. And then maybe there's like an even larger and obscenely swollen pouch carrying all this mess...though, carrying where? And then what if that pouch is in the hands of some behemoth thing that itself isn't moving so everything's really just...wait, how'd I know what 'behemoth' means? the ant wonders.
And then he thinks about his family and goes back to work.
The ant has a family and he worries about them constantly. He worries he'll get squished before he's able to fully provide for them. Or, worse, that they'll get squished before he gets squished, and then his short life won't have any more purpose.
Everything he does is with his family in mind. Every morsel he comes across and hefts back to their lair even though it weighs twice what he weighs is for his family, not himself. He has no life ambitions, or I suppose you could say that his family is his one life ambition.
Every so often he wanders out in twilight to the Great Sea and is sensuously overwhelmed. He thinks it might be nice to float on his back and breathe lightly and let his legs sort of flail uncontrollably with the wind and drift in whatever direction it is that the Great Sea drifts. Or maybe this Great Sea drifts to an even Greater Sea, he thinks. And maybe that Greater Sea is just a speck that, to some other being, is just as small as he thinks he is. And then maybe there's like an even larger and obscenely swollen pouch carrying all this mess...though, carrying where? And then what if that pouch is in the hands of some behemoth thing that itself isn't moving so everything's really just...wait, how'd I know what 'behemoth' means? the ant wonders.
And then he thinks about his family and goes back to work.
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