Ant, Part 2 - by Margarida Brei

https://Voice.club - I was a distinguished ant specialist until…

I was a productive environmentalist until….

I was a happy loner until…

My name is Ant because I know everything about ants. Superior strength ability to lift 50 times their own weight. Live in a formicary. Their two stomachs mean that one is for their own consumption while the other is for sharing food with the colony. Without lungs they breathe through spiracles - holes in their bodies. Their high social structure includes workers, soldiers and a queen. Some ants enslave other colonies. Their feet feel vibrations helping them hear. Drones or male ants exist solely to fertilise the queen. Most ants are female. The sting of a bullet ant is so painful it is compared to being hit by a bullet. When anxious I tended to drone on about ants. My research on ants was my life and a happy one. After I successfully turned ants into plastic eating environmental cleaners, my life was dramatically altered. In eating plastic and pooping out a strong reusable material, my ants brought me fame. Yet fame has a price!

My world was now a nightmare surrounded by threatening mammatus clouds. Thunderstorms and turbulence were fast approaching. So, I was forced to climb into my battered truck and head for the unknown and lose myself in the distant country. Rather than country comfort, I required country anonymity. After my E. O. Wilson Super Ants made me a multimillionaire, my research and very existence were threatened. Luckily, I was yet uncertain which magic ingredient transformed my ants into climate cleansing cannibals.

My truck was dented, dilapidated and damaged, so with this camouflage it easily fled to a desolate part of the country. Inside the mutilated exterior was a powerful engine and a replica of my lab which enabled my super ants to continue devouring plastic.

We drove through the night to a hidden location in the deep countryside leaving behind a gutted lab. It was necessary to keep my secret out of danger.

…. my ants caught the greedy attention of every thug.

1 Like

Wow! A society just like the bees! I just wish those plastic devouring ants were real, although your description and story brought them to life in my mind, I just loved it!

Kudos, Margarida! You managed to continue your wonderful Ant story, and also fit it into the contest prompt! Your multi-millionaire protagonist is now in real trouble! This character, and the educational descriptions of ants are wonderful. Will we learn more in the future? Hope so!

Very unusual take on the prompt, Margarida. I like the idea of plastic-eating ants, and it may not be that far-fetched. After all, they have discovered a black fungus in Chernobyl that can eat radioactivity and turn it into energy. Nature has a way of overcoming man’s stupidity.

Wow! I really wish that plastic-eating ants actually existed. And I never expect that you can continue your Ant, Part 2 with this prompt. You surprised me. Nice one.