Queen of the Ants 23-May-98 04:36:50

This is an incident I shall never forget, it occurred when I was around eight years old, quite some time ago.

It was one of those sweltering summer days when the ants decide its a good time to spread their wings. I have to say ants fascinate me, their way of organisation, their society, they have a special kind of intelligence which we’re not quite bright enough to understand. Myself I love insects, find them fascinating with a beauty all of their own. The phrase `just a bug’ is for the intellectually blind.

I was playing in the communal area around which the houses in our close join. The air was full of flying ants and I was trying to find where they were all coming from. It didn’t take me long to track them down to a crack in a large paving stone where I settled down to watch the emerging masses. The different types always thrill me, large flyers I guess are the new `would be’ queens, small flyers the escorting workers and there always seem to be larger soldier types for protection. Some use the protection turned out to be.

A neighbour of mine walked up behind me and gave me a start. She was an older girl in her mid teens called Janet. Janet was my worst enemy, my baby sitter & general tormentor. I resented the fact that she was left in charge when my parents were out. My only means of retaliation was name calling and general bratish behaviour, which of cause she turned against me and humiliated me at every turn.

"Might have guessed I’d find you here with the rest of the vermin" she said, as she began to kill the ants. I was shocked into silence as I watched her foot pivot over a soldier on the edge of the nest. She lowered the sole of her black pump, I heard it’s body crack as she pressed the live out of it. Then she slowly twisted on it and dragged her foot back revealing a smear where the ant had been. "No!" I screamed as she moved toward the departing queens. I looked up at her in outrage and began shouting my protests. She looked down at me in contempt, "I guess I should expect no better from you, sulky boy, when are you going to grow up?". With that a broad smiled opened across her face and she began to kill them. Her beautiful stockinged foot encased in here black stiletto shoe began to reap mayhem (I have to say, to me everything about her was beautiful). She stomped, dragged and twisted all over the nest entrance, killing every ant in view. All I could hear was the cracking of their bodies and the occasional purr of satisfaction from Janet as she wandered around pressing her foot down on their intricate little bodies. All I could imagine was the screams & outrage of her victims & the misery of the their mother queen below. I wanted to think of a way of stopping this.

I began in desperation to sweep those next to me onto the grass. I managed to sweep 3 or 4 onto the grass when Janet spotted me. She walked over and just pushed me out of the way. Unfortunately they were still quite visible. She crushed 3 quickly with her foot. The last she had difficulty with, as I remember it was some how protected by a twig. I couldn’t believe what was happening, was she punishing me or the ants. As I began to cry and babble with frustration she bent down to pluck the remaining ant with her fingers from the twig. She paused to look at me, she was still smiling her self satisfied cruel smile. "Pathetic" she said , "you’re no better than they are". With that she rose, ant between fingers, and stepped back on the path. She turned to face me, dropped the ant onto the floor and put her immaculate shiny shoe down on it. CRACK. She waited a few seconds and the slowly ground it into the dust. With her foot pressed down on it and her high heel raised off the ground, she dragged her shoe back triumphantly. "Mind what you call me in future, or that might happen to you." She laughed quietly and walked back into her house.

I was left sulking by the nest feeling crushed myself. Slowly, very slowly, ants began to emerge from the crack to pick up the bodies of their friends. You can’t really destroy an ant’s nest I thought, until Janet returned with a kettle of boiling water. She poured the water down the crack, ignoring me. I guess she got the queen too, I never saw another ant come out of that crack. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone more than I hated Janet that day!

Its odd how love & hate work. Next time Janet came around to baby sit I behaved myself. Hate had turned to love. What I viewed as cruelty I now viewed as divine right. Since the ant incident, in my mind she had become my goddess. Against my will her spell had done its work, no longer the object of my hatred, all I wanted was to worship her. As she watched TV I sat at her feet. I made her drinks and fetched her snacks. Finally, while I crouched at her heel, I lay down in front of her and began to kiss those warm beautiful stockinged feet. I think she was a little shocked at first, but she let me continue. It felt like forever in heaven to me as I grovelled to her on the floor, but I guess it was just ten minutes before she lifted my chin with her foot. "Come on now", she said softly as she stroked my cheek, "what would your mum and dad think?".

My mum and dad never found out, and I continued to kneel down and kiss Janet’s feet whenever she and opportunity allowed. I had made my peace with my goddess, and I guess she preferred my submission to my tantrums.