by Steven Ring

I’ve been living with the ants for six weeks. Shrinking was awful, but I’m starting to feel better. 

Now, every day is the same. We wake together in an almond-shaped cavern and sing the Queen’s song of beginnings – a thrumming tune that sounds like building rain. The melody stretches through the stale air. It’s dark. I gently trace the shallow dashed grooves that line the tunnel walls. Chittering ants scurry ahead. I’m slow, but the ants don’t mind. At the end of our tunnel the earth is cool and damp. I form a claw with my fingers and start scooping soft handfuls of dirt. Close above, on the surface, is a brutal brick wall. When there is more tunneled than un-tunneled, the wall will collapse. And then we will dance all over it.  

I pause from my digging and squeeze a clump of clay-flecked soil. My fingers find changes in grit, pockets of moisture, and half-decayed roots. I trace the creases and peaks in the clump – they mirror the lines of my own skin. The tunnel smells like lemony vinegar mixed with sweat. After a digging session, the ants carve new dashed grooves on the tunnel walls so I can find my way home. Asleep, I dream that my face is wiped away. In its place a mound of red dirt rises, crumbling and reforming in pulsing waves. I sleep well.

The ants sing almost all day. Songs for digging. Songs for finding. Above all, they sing songs for the Queen. But lately, they’ve been singing about the Helpers who live on the other side of the wall. They say the Helpers are tunneling towards us.  

Every few days, we create new sleeping chambers. Most are shaped like the seeds of pepitas, almonds, and zucchini. 

One day, we return to a pepita-shaped cavern. The bottom has partially collapsed. Loose soil tumbles into the hollow below. Strange ants spill into our cave, their movements hesitant. They sing an unfamiliar and yearning harmony. 

They ask if we’re the Helpers. We say no, are you the Helpers? Their antennae twitch. No, they say. We don’t know about any wall. We’re looking for food.