The Permian man

A man has a philosophical debate with a giant ant on whether or not he should die.

I have found myself in a uniquely precarious situation today. I walked into the bathroom and upon being alerted by some obscure sound, encountered what I may only term inadequately as an enormous red ant. I say this is an inadequate description for the animal in question is as much an ant as a human is an amoeba. Perhaps a million ants could fit inside this huge bulking beast whose body loomed over me like a skyscraper, engulfing me like a shadow. This insect stands upright and is of such ridiculous proportions that he must crouch his head down to around chest level in order not to accommodate his huge mass to my not inconsiderably sized bathroom. He had enormous pincers stretching from his mandibles but yet in-between there were some very thin lips. His eyes were also colossal but yet had an inquiring glint in them. Beside the unsettling countenance of this beast, his body language and countenance seemed to convey a certain peaceful disposition reminding one of some Tibetan priest.
Realizing that if this monster willed it, he could kill me and being of a somewhat callous disposition, I decided to merely approach the sink and wash my hands. Upon retrospect I was surprised that during the act I had even forgotten about the beast and noticed that I was low on soap. I was more focused on the fact that I would need to go to the shop soon to restock; a duty that this beast might relieve me of if I was ever so lucky. Thus, I was feeling almost grateful to finally be rid of this life. The ant, we shall call him thus for lack of a better name, curiously did not move much, he only followed my movements with those grand sagacious eyes.
“I find myself on the horns of a dilemma.” The ant said with a booming voice which a lesser man would mistake for God. I merely stood there looking at him inquiring with my eyes as to what he meant. To which gaze he replied with “My lesser’s have been so brutally eliminated by you and your kind with calculation and cunning enough to rectify your usurped speciestic stewardship which you so haphazardly wield with an air of undeserved authority. Tell me then why I should not kill you in order to do justice to my murdered kin?”
I answered “What is justice if not merely the Strong’s rationale to do what he wills? After all the only reason you are able to exact your revenge is because your position and strength make it possible for me to lie helpless before you. I ask you, if by my death will the act of my merciless holocaust that I have unleashed upon your brethren be erased?”
To which the ant responded “No, but I and my living brethren will have some satisfaction. Enough so to continue to live in these conditions so burdensomely lay down before us. After all what is life if not the transient sensation and the lasting memory that presides over our being until judgement day tolls upon our weary souls; thus if only for the sake of temporary satisfaction do I not have cause to end your life?”
I looked at him nodding in slight approval as I moved with a cavalier air that still impresses upon my memory at this moment. I then looked at him and asked “What satisfaction do you expect to gain from my death? Do you wish to be the same as me, a murderer of a weaker species? You speak of sensations, well then I shall impart upon you an eternal one and that is regret; for even if you do or do not kill me, the thoughts shall linger in either direction. Thus you have your sensation, just not your blood. Those brethren are no more and the lot of you I assume exist in some horrible condition, how much more debased do you desire that condition to become? For, my death shall rightly place you in your lot.”
This answer seemed almost to startle the ant, to which he then started to look upwards lost in thought. I probably could have escaped at this point but I was enjoying this existential discussion too much and was willing to pursue it to its finality. Oh what ego I have to have had to think that I could convince this ant to retreat back to his hole when I knew full well that he deserved his blood price more so than any wronged human. Then again perhaps there was not any ego but a sense of finality to my own self; to die in a philosophical discourse is after all any true scholars dream. I almost felt like Socrates in that cell in Athens with the poison in my hand in deep contemplation.
I stood there basking in the interminable suffering that this ant was so obviously undergoing. His large black eyes almost seemed to be filled with tears. These ants are as lost as mankind; they just seem to be more aware of it. To further exasperate their condition they must live apparently in hiding; for I have not heard of some giant ant nation lingering on in the savannahs of Africa. No, even to the amateur biologist it was obvious that this species was subterranean. His dirt covered thorax gave a pretty clear hint but his eyes shying away from the little light pouring in from the doorway made it a certainty.
I was impressed and felt even satisfied with those large sad eyes but I still had an urge to stick the point of my reason deeper into his gut, “I admire your ability to so contentiously devote some aspect of yourself to what is otherwise a pointless pursuit. However, I ask you to place the world on your fingers and tell me where your place is. We are the light of the world now, while you are merely genesis. We unlike your kind bit the fruit in the garden without fear and have no regrets.”
I felt the predator now more so than ever. I would attain something finer than blood from this noble misguided beast, I would have his sagacity. “I speak with such biblical overtones for I understand you to be an ancient race and have some familiarity with it. However, I actually see in you our tortured Prometheus bound to his mountain regretting giving man the torch and wishing for death. You then render yourself desperately unto sensations, but I sense something else underneath that thorax. You live for reason and logic and I ask you what can be more adverse to that then a sensation? My dear Prometheus, are you our superior in logic or irrationality?”

He then looked at me with what I imagine could be described as an aggrieved face and said “A caelo usque ad centrum, a law you so defiantly believe even against all the maxims of nature, we ruled before you and thought as such. We realized though the vanity and ego intelligence imposes upon ones species and what it drives it to commit. I ask you do other species of lesser conscious murder its own or others on such a vast scale for purposes other than survival? We beings of though and awareness commit genocide, patricide, infanticide on our own species on a grander scale than nature could have ever contempletated. Intelligent thought is the bane of all life; for even if directed productively it merely serves to make us aware that we are all transient specks on a design far too great to ever be fully understood. Thus, is it not the destiny of all intelligent life frustration, suffering and self-destruction? Regardless of justice then, would not my action upon your corporeal self be justified as an act of mercy?”
Oh what a curious arthropod this was, gazing at me with those large black dreamy eyes. At that point of philosophical debate, I almost fell in love. A species I formerly believed so abhorrent was now lecturing me on the purpose of intelligent life. I had long before retained that the enlightenment would inevitably lead to the realization of intelligent life’s futility and as like the ant said to self-destruction or degradation beyond belief. However, this mortal coil seems to have a will of its own and now being faced with annihilation if it assented, decided to fight and I accented for the mere love of a good argument.
“In the grand scheme of the universe what is self-destruction but a natural process. We live only because of that grand self-destructive body called the sun, why then should we, who are but a microcosm of the stars, not act like them? Consciousness merely makes us aware of the process, and emotion makes us want to fight it. However that too is part of the design for in the fight we destroy ourselves. Progress has only served to create more enlightened ways of self-destruction. I laugh at the idea of there being a natural cycle on this planet, which we humans disturb. We disrupt this planet no more than the meteor does or a supernova from a far off system. The true natural cycle is not planetary but universal. The only local aspect of nature is the methodological laws it employs to implement itself, but these are as transient as you or me.”
I then examined the ant, who seemed to be looking at me lost in thought. That is how any truly intelligent species converses, by thinking beforehand. I then said “I figure your species hails from the Permian era, surviving throughout the tides of history by living abstinently. However, it has been you who has committed the greatest act of pride by intelligently assuming the mantle of survival above all else. Mankind is coming to realize the futility of its existence and may in due course destroy itself but that is the right intelligence and humility grants us.” Oh how sharp my dagger was getting, “on to the fray” I thought as I saw my words carving out a hole in his sagacious mind.
“To realize that as a species we are transient and whether we die now or when the sun explodes in five billion years from now, that it has all been for nothing other than passing the time is the ultimate form of recognizing our place. For hundreds of millions of years your species has secluded itself in the subterranean regions of this planet; contemplating some mystery or another to no end. Do you believe your mystery shall save your species from the annihilation you so cavalierly propose to me? No because you are deader to this planet than the ants I so casually crush. Your time has passed and you stubbornly hold on to the false dogmas of your teachers; for if you had been truly enlightened your species would have ceased to exist by now.”
This ant in almost a fit of despair leaned back against the wall of my bathroom. Oh what dirt this arthropodic monk was spreading across the porcelain veneer of my otherwise immaculate bathroom. I once again questioned the purpose of my rhetoric, for another unwanted task would be placed as a burden upon this life. The temptation then presided over my being to place my neck at the mercy of the pincers of this archaic beast. However this ant whose confidence now seemed to drain from his eyes as he leaned clumsily against the wall, looked at me with a sad desperation. It was as if I now had the pincers at his throat and I and my kind are beasts of another kind; for we do not let our prey go.
The ant then looked at me with eyes of weary frustration and said “Dum vivimus, vivamus, we still have a right to live for we live. As such the meandering callousness for how you treat mine and others under the auspices of doing what thy wilt must be punished. Your Christian god punished its lord of light by banishing him to an infernal temple, and even the gods of Greece killed or bound theirs. Why such legends do intelligent creatures create? If not to preserve the significance of meaning. Thus, if only for the example and to have some respect and dignity upon this world, you must die.”
The ant then motioned as though he were about to move against me but then collapsed once again on the bathroom wall. He stared at me for a couple of seconds with an exasperated look and said “You humble me with your reason but one cannot always give into logic to find the answers for the beholden must learn to discard these lesser notions that seek to usurp the universe. Yes, my species has lived past its time but it has not been without purpose for we have the wisdom of the ages and have lived for a far greater time than yours. I ask you then what right does your species have to reign sovereign over this planet?”
Now this was a wise ant, but I could tell that I had my knife at his throat. If only all insects could be killed by discourse I would happily give into the life of an exterminator. I looked at this poor creature, an evolutionary mistake who has only survived by existing outside the natural process. This one ant I believe was as unique as any human could possibly be. I felt pity for it but I realized that despite the intelligence and strength of this creature it did not have the cunning or dereliction that man so easily exhibits. It was an evolutionary colvasac, and the shame of it all was that it may have even been more intelligently capable than man but it just could not bring itself to bite the fruit in the Garden of Eden. It did not lack courage but rather just the will to obtain power; for that is a truly human idea.
Pity though was not appropriate for the moment, thus I looked straight at those large weary black eyes and said “You are right to say that logic must be disregarded but not to adhere to a lesser form that you seem so desperately to cling unto. Like our Christian’s you retain your own version of false rationality that incorporates the megalith that encompasses your lives; that is the regard for the act above the thought. Amongst us we are disregarding now these false notions, but still we retain something else which you lack; capriciousness. Had you had these traits your agony would have subsided by now and I would have been dead before you had even heard my voice. Intelligence you see, did not grow in the same manner as it did in your society; for we did not just have to defeat nature to survive but ourselves to satiate our lusts. You speak of rights violated and that your life merely for existing deserves to. If we were in your subterranean society I would be inclined to agree with you but we are not. This is the world that us humans have usurped and seek to retain. If you wish to contest that, rise from your caves and see how you coexist with us. To kill one man would not do your species justice, at least not in your current high idealized version of it, rather only extermination will be able to satiate your reason. Thus, kill me if you like but know then that you would only become me. Afterall that is why God never killed Lucifer for then he would no longer be God.”
This ant now stood gazing at the light that was seeping through the door. His sagacious eyes seemed brittle and his overall physique smaller. His body half laid within the bathtub with his head resting on the wall and his legs leaning over it. He was looking at me with the humbled gaze of one tortured by contemplation and philosophy. The strong powerful ant was gone and what remained was a depilated being. Amazing to think that this creature may have become endangered through thought, for there is probably no creature on earth strong enough to stand against its physique; even the large whales residing in the ocean would have found this being a formidable challenge. I felt as though I were looking at nature incarnate.
I casually leaned my back against the wall and looked at this pitiful sight. He looked back at me and said “What is it that my strength and knowledge grants me then, if not superiority over your younger race? I stand here almost beholden to you, for I have never met a man so staunch. You have not been the first I have encountered but the others would just cower beneath me. Why do you not cower? Do you not fear me? Do you not fear death?”
How complacent my philosophical arthropod had become. I looked at him pitifully and responded “Most men fear death because of the afterlife; they do not fear death rather the life that comes afterwards. I on the other hand am fairly certain that there is no afterlife rather I seek only to wile away this existence with petty questions and answers. I see that you seek something similar, as such then perhaps you are more human than I had given credit. However, the precedence of age you have so haphazardly placed on your shoulders, I find to be against reason for their having been many before you that have lived longer and in a better state. Thus, I can only relinquish the title of evolutionary superiority which you and many of my kind has welcomingly attempted to attain to bacteria; which have been here longer than you or I and may have even created us for the purpose of their survival. I say these for all species are their colonies and we merely serve to propagate; the grand unconscious subjugation of all life they have committed is too impossible for us to even contemplate.”
I shifted my position and began to look at those inquiring eyes whose frustration could almost shatter the very fabric of reality. I looked at my student now and said “Nirvana is nothingness, and thus you are exactly the same as us for I one day see a man who will also come from beneath the earth and have a dialogue with a more evolved species retaining an equal or greater air of superiority. How staunch am I you say, well that is just the pot calling the kettle black because you have existed here far beyond the normal range of years and still desire to dictate events. How naïve are you really? There is nothing for you here anymore. I see no small ant to plead the case before you because he is not capable of such thought. How superficial your species is, that it only associates with those whose figure is similar to yourselves. When in reality we are your successors and you are but a link in our evolution. As old as you and your species may be, you must remember you handed us the fire that we use to so cavalierly murder your “kin.” Thus, you mention other lives you have taken then I say to you it was not they or I who killed brothers but you.”

What sorrowful eyes this formerly foreboding creature now had. How he looked upon my face in agony, a truth that he was running from now seemed to flash before his eyes and catch up to his very being. “Rem acu tetigisti,” he said “I have had this feeling ever since I began this quest to find the reason for my species existing and it has now been found. If only to find such an answer has not my actions been justified? Oh what justice do I speak of! I have found my answer through an ape not wisdom or contemplation. What dictates the events of this earth if not happenstance? Oh how many of our brethren you could have saved if I could only have met you before. However, now I see what these pincers have done to the necks of those men whose only crime was surviving. Even those without conscious have some merit in the grand scheme. Survival is still important and us having achieved such was dependent upon discovering the right balance between good and evil. You were right when you said that we were too good but your species seems to be leaning the other way. Benevolence and malevolence must go hand in hand if not we will never have any life on this planet.”
Some confidence seemed to be returning to this ant as he sought now to impart upon me some realization upon me but now as the threat of death seemed to subside; my cynicism seemed to have a more poignant edge. “The good and evil you speak of, does not exist. There will never be one set of behaviour that will define the proper method for how living creatures should exist, for there is no reason for why they should exist. Rather the only thing that’s real in life is the actions and thoughts we undertake in the moment and their repercussions; cause and effect. I’m afraid that you have merely served the purpose of making widows and crying children. If that all serves only for you to realize the futility of such actions then it merely displays the inadequacies of enlightenment. Your actions though they have made you enlightened, does not delete their effect. Those actors will never be able to affect their transient actions. Then again we are all conscious beings dangling in senseless articulation with no meaning. From this perspective you can continue to live but without purpose. Thus Prometheus you have found your fire, the question is whether you wish to keep it.”
The ant’s short-lived confidence seemed to subside. An illusion that had been caught in those horns was now dissipating and what was in between was becoming more apparent. At which point I asked, “How did you come into this bathroom anyways?”
The ant now looking more sorrowful and shrunken than ever, merely looked at the open window. To which I remarked “What a man risks for some fresh air,” but he seemed not to hear it. Thought seemed to elude this noble creature, I had my door to go through but he did not.
There was a long pause in our interaction where we would glance at each other intermittently. Then compelled by mercy I thought it prudent to reach behind the mirror into the cupboard and pour a large glass of green liquid. I then moved over next to this giant ant and placed this glass next to him and said “take off your chains prometheus.” To which he looked at me for a short while, picked up the glass and drank it greedily. He expired peacefully with the words “Kratistos” on his lips.To the strongest, how right those words were for Alexander had given up his supremacy in the same fashion.

Author's Note

Tell me what you think of the dialogue, need more action?

Reviews

[MoriartyMesa]

The Dialog works like a screen play, or maybe something for the stage, are these the views you are leaning too? B/c for me, it is the bet that seems a long shot, but the pay off is worth it.

[RenatoRojo]

Thanks for the review and not exactly, I just like to play devils advocate sometimes. To be honest I lean more towards Buddhism except I disagree with some of its hierarchical views.