Once upon a time there was a man named Kled. He had no job and was sitting in his backyard, looking at the red ants that were passing by. He became transfixed by the way they moved and worked.
Who sent them to be so busy? Don’t they ever rest?
He walked into his father’s storeroom and searched in a pile of boxes for books that could hopefully answer his questions. He placed a heavy box on the table, got to his feet and started looking inside it whilst taking out books. Kled accidently knocked a bottle full of a red liquid from the table to the ground and it shattered to pieces. The liquid landed on his shoes. He didn’t care too much about the broken pieces and continued looking for books.
He found a book that looked to have some potential. It was full of dust. He took a deep breath and tried to get as much dirt as possible away. The book read ‘Communication and labour by insects’.
As he read out loud, Kled felt his shoes become bigger and he became smaller and smaller. He screamed in confusion as he saw his clothes falling, leaving him naked. He was the size of an ant.
He ran as quickly as his little legs could take him into the big garden outside. He saw ants all around him and they were all so busy. One ant scooped him onto a leaf as it paced to the nest. Many ants followed in high speeds and all he could do was watch.
He was thrown down a moulded slide that looked minty as he kissed the red sand. As he got up, the queen ant stood in front of him. She was big and spoke in an authoritative voice.
“What are you doing here?” She stood tall and had a big abdomen.
“Your kind is huge and yet you aren’t Speak Walker,”
“The, the… size, I am sorry but I shrunk and I…”
He stopped speaking as one of the medium sized ant’s pointed a sharp thorn spear at his neck.
“Our Queen should not be listening to the wicked ones!” It shouted bravely whilst looking at its queen. The queen pointed, signalling to it. It told the others to escort him out as he parted ways with the queen.
He was left on the concrete ends of the garden and he walked back towards the storeroom. It took him a long time before entering. The place looked huge, bigger than the city’s towers. He looked around the shattered glasses and finally found one with a paper tag of instructions: Handle with ‘special’ care. For usage: Touch or drink to shrink and for a normal size, touch/drink to go back to your regular size.
“No, today day is really great, but this one will surely be remembered…” He continued talking alone for a long time. When his feet started to feel sore, he stepped into the potion and after a few seconds, he grew large again and he wore his clothes.
He walked around the table and took the mop to clean off the potion. He closed the book and spoke out loud: “They are not working, but they’re guarding.”
Kled went on with the day as best as he could, but he could never forget the look of the Queen ant and how close he was to death.
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Tell us: If you could speak to ants, what would you say?