Bob the Ant

Welcome to the story of the week! It is my intention to have a new story, or piece of a story, every week for your entertainment pleasure. These first few weeks I'm going to cheat a bit and put up stories that I wrote a while ago. This one I wrote a few years ago while sitting on my parent's front lawn, watching my mom sprinkle ant killer all over the driveway and front steps.

Bob the ant was having a bad day. He had gotten up early, as usual and could sense that something was awry, but didn’t think too much of it. He emerged from his hill to begin gathering scraps for breakfast. As soon as he came out he heard a horrendous sound. He looked up just in time to see a huge black boulder with spikes rolling towards him. He started to run away, but the boulder was too quick: he was going to be smushed. Fortunately, there were many little grooves in the boulder and he escaped unsmushed. Right behind it was another one but he was able to get away before it hit. Shaking a bit from the shock, Bob went on. The previous day he had found a landmine of food. Although he had gathered as much as he could and had enlisted the help of nearly everyone he knew, there had still been a lot there by the time he decided to call it a day. Soon his friends were joining him outside of his hill, talking excitedly about the boulder that had just passed by, asking Bob to tell them again and again how exactly he escaped. Some didn’t seem too impressed: they had heard a similar story hundreds of times, from hundreds of different ants. Bob himself had heard stories, but before he had never believed them. It was a long journey to the food, but that didn’t dampen their spirits any. Bob got more and more excited as he passed landmarks that he remembered from the day before. Finally, they were there- he knew it was the same place. When they got to the spot, however, there was nothing there. The ants were outraged, and scurried around for a bit, thinking that perhaps they had misjudged and were actually at the wrong spot. Finally, they decided that a bird must have taken their food and sadly turned around to go looking somewhere else.

As they slowly made their travel back toward home, Bob noticed that there was a great commotion going on in the front of the caravan. Curiously he ran up ahead to see what was going on. He was horrified by what he saw. Hundreds upon thousands of ants were laying around dead. Half of them were so disfigured that one could not even tell that they were ants anymore. Bob frantically looked for someone he knew among them, but it was no use. He wouldn’t be able to tell even if his whole family were there. Many of the ants set out to help take care of the dead. Others decided that they might as well collect the food the ants had left behind: no need letting it go to waste. Still others were outraged at this monstrosity, and commenced arguing over what could have happened to them, and demanding immediate action. Bob gathered up as much food as he could and slowly made his way home. There was no one there- he expected that. In fact, the whole hill seemed to be deserted. Feeling more horrible than he could ever remember, he ate some of the food he had gathered from the horrific scene and went to sleep- never to awake again.


Tip O' the Day: Make your hot chocolate really hot and then put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it. Yum!