So…a couple nights ago this ginormous swarm of ants invaded my home from some sort of hidden ninja-path inside my coat closet and started eating my cat’s food. Now, when I say swarm, I mean it. My poor cat’s bowl of food was so covered in ants that you literally (I don’t mean figuratively) could not see the food in the bowl. So, when I couldn’t get to sleep later that night I started thinking about a story I read when I was a kid about a couple of ants searching for food and I thought to myself: “I could do that”, and so for your reading pleasure I present my own version of being an ant. o.o (I am, by the way, not overly concerned with the correctness of the actual social structure of ants, though I know it’s pretty sophisticated.)
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I followed the trail as carefully as I could, knowing even as I did so that there was a marching line of my brethren in front and behind. It seemed endless, this journey we were on, but duty was clear to us all. We needed food for ourselves, food for our young ones, and of course, for our Queen. No matter how far we must go we would never tire or falter, and no matter what obstacles may present themselves we would keep on marching: over, under, around, or through. Our strength lies in numbers and for some reason I believe it always has and forever will.
We do not communicate these ideas, these abstract things, to one another as other creatures might. We think them, but we do not give them to one another because at the core of our beings we all just know. We know the paths and ways  that the scouts have given us, as we would know our own legs and antennae. There is no end to us. All knowledge is universal to us. The only mystery, if I understand the concept correctly, is the knowing of our Queen. She is the core and center of being, and it is only she whom we do not all know as we know ourselves and one another – though, clearly, she knows us all. There is no female created without her knowledge, there is no worker that dies without her understanding how it came to pass; she is omniscient and hidden.

I have never seen the Queen, but I know each part of her as well as she knows herself. This was I believe impressed upon my mind in some way – we think and we know our leader. We think and we know our place. We toil and we feed the world in which we belong and we do it gladly for the Queen. These ideas I do not communicate; the wondering how and why I know, but I also know that others have these thoughts – these ideas. We do not question because there is nothing to question, but we wonder how we came to be and how it is we know.

The food is heavy and there is much to gather, but we are strong and together we set to moving it back to our home. As I lift my share of the burden I seek the path that will take me back and I know the Queen is aware that I have found food. How she knows, and how I know that she knows, is a strange and comforting thing in my brain. If joy exists, then I think I feel it in this, our grand victory. But then, suddenly, I feel something hit my back.

My load is heavier, if only infinitesimally and I am choking. I can no longer see. There is something some wetness over me. I struggle and my antennae touches another. We cling to each other. The food is poisoned and forgotten. It will not serve our colony. It would kill our Queen. She knows this. I feel her in my mind. We find another of our number and cling again. They know her, too. They communicate our losses to me. We find another and cling desperately to each other. If we can gather enough we may survive the wet. We find another. And another…and together we drown.