Heaven is for Worker Ants

Once when I was a little kid I was watching this little ant. A little red ant, it had found a large white feather. It had decided it needed this feather, needed to take it across this side walk. Centimetre by centimetre it struggled mightily, pulling with it the feather. I was amazed at how brazen it was, how determined and noble. It pulled and pulled. Half an hour later it was in the middle of the the sidewalk.

Somebody stepped on it. I cried. The little ant was dead, expired. Gone to ant heaven. The feather remained where the little ant comrade had fallen. I wanted to give the little ant meaning, wanted it’s life to be worth something as noble as it had been. All I could do was move the feather to the other side of the sidewalk. After death, it’s mission had finally been accomplished.

Sometimes I still cry when I think of the little ant, a tear seeps out larger than the ant’s body had been. Sometimes I wonder if I should have moved the feather and the ant, but I know that would have wrecked the story.