Stacy--Part Thirty-Five

Splog # 127

Thirty-Five

   And then something ran across her hand, which was resting on the ground. She looked down just in time to see a large ant climb from between two of her fingers and move away into the grass. As she looked closer, trying to follow its trail, she found that the area all around her was swarming with ants. They were fairly large and of a rather indeterminate color. At first glance they looked black but, as she watched them climbing blades of grass or moving about under them, she found that in different gradations of light they took on different hues: red, blue, even purple. They seemed to be moving indiscriminately, as ants always appear to human reasoning, but she descried, amid all the scurry hither, thither and yon, a haphazard column heading between the apple that she had dropped and somewhere behind her. She cautiously changed her position, cognizant of where she placed hands and knees, trying to avoid causing disruption to the industrious workers. It only took a moment for her to reach the site of her mishap and to discover that what had caused her misstep was a low type of anthill. Its inhabitants (or former inhabitants might be more precise) were crazily rushing around it in all directions and seemingly going quietly berserk. The only sign of order was the column steadily moving towards the apple, although it did seem that many ants were breaking away from the file and rushing off to who-knows-where, while others would appear from the surrounding wilderness of grass and fall into line. She could see the apple from where she was. It was a few feet away, still doing its miniature dance in the grass. She couldn't discern the entire length of the column as it wound through the forest of grass but it did seem to lead to the apple. Was it possible that the tiny creatures were trying to move the piece of fruit? She thought that it must seem like a mountain to them. She looked back at the footprint and the skid mark and wondered how much damage she had done to their home and whether she had killed any of them. A foot like hers could probably destroy ten or twenty ants and the slide could have doubled the number, or even tripled it. Who could know? There could also be mutilated ants with body sections missing. She wondered if she could somehow pile up the dirt again. But she wouldn't know how ants liked their...walls? The tireless creatures could probably rebuild whatever they needed in no great time. But there was one thing she could do. Attempting as much caution as possible, she crawled on hands and knees, brushing the grass before she put a hand down, a little way toward the apple. When she figured she could reach it by a long stretch, she stopped and, leaning as near as she could,  managed to grab the stem of the apple between her thumb and forefinger. There were ants wandering over the mutilated fruit, especially where the white, now turning brown,   was exposed. She moved back to the demolished ant hill and gently placed her offering down beside it. Most of the ants immediately adjacent to the fruit began crawling onto it. Stacy watched for a few moments but, of course, had no idea exactly what the ants were doing as they scurried over the face of the apple. She looked down and saw that the column was still winding its way to where the apple had previously fallen. Maybe those on this end hadn't gotten the message yet, she thought. She regretted the damage done to the ants' home but thought she had done all she could to make reparations and it was probably time to get moving again. "With all these interruptions,  if I ever reach those children in the cages, they'll be all grown up." She stood up a slight distance from the ant hill and hoped that she wasn't causing any more death and destruction. She pushed weight on to her left foot to find out what condition it was in. It hurt when she placed her heel down but didn't bother her too much if she stayed on her toes and the ball of her foot. She found that her right knee gave a slight twinge of pain if she put her weight on it in a certain way. With a sigh she decided that she'd have to move slowly and conscientiously so as not to make either injury worse. She stood in one place and lightly moved her weight back and forth between her two legs. She'd be okay if there were no more mishaps. She tensed and relaxed each leg a couple of times to loosen it up. She looked down to reassure herself that her limbs were fine and sound and, to her surprise, found a new column of ants passing between her feet. This column seemed more disciplined and orderly than the apple column had. It seemed quite wide yet at the same time, compact with thousands of ants moving steadily in one direction.