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Finding the Rain: A Short Story About an Ant

It was April, maybe May, who knows? It was noon and the ant didn’t know it but it was going to rain again. When it rained, it would scurry itself trying to pump its tiny legs away from the dreaded drench of water that killed off members of his family every day. It even killed off some other ants he didn’t know but only saw occasionally and touched antennas with. Like Mrs. Agropyron who used to come by the family tunnel and share the raisins she would find in the vast forest that was surrounded by a flat stone valley. However, the rain came once while her boys were out of the mound looking for food. Once the tunnel ceiling became damp and the tunnels grew cold, Mrs. Agropyron went scurrying out of the tunnel only to see the hand of the Mighty Queen bring water from the Rain Serpent before scurrying back in and locking herself in her tunnel with the raisins her sons had collected. After several days (which were actually hours in ant kingdom time), Mrs. Agropyron stepped out of the tunnels and found her way to the stone valley that was covered in water mounds and stepped into one drowning herself.

The ant sighed at this memory and rolled over facing its tiny legs to the sky. Why does the Mighty Queen do this to us? It wondered. At the edge of the forest, not so far from the kingdom was a wall. Beyond that wall, the other kingdoms lay, the forest grew taller and was filled with various other creatures that still frightened the little ant. In desperate times, an army of the Mound Queen’s mightiest warriors would line up and crawl into the forest at the hint of the ripe fruit laying on the ground. Sometimes, only rarely, one of the creatures would die in the forest and the scent of those sent the warriors charging. Stay in line! The generals would say. Know your place! Serve the Queen and the Mighty Queen! 

Are you all right? Antennas touched his and he came face to face with his older sister. The longer you stay out here, the more likely the Mighty Queen will make it rain again. 

Leave me alone, please. The Mighty Queen doesn’t like us at all.. His sisters mandibles twitched in an unsatisfactory manner as the ant rolled to its side, its right eye closed to keep the dirt away from it.

It isn’t the Queen that tries to kill us, brother. It’s the rain. The Rain Serpent escapes the Mighty Queen’s grasp when it sees us and the Mighty Queen tries to wrestle it back to sleep. It lays coiled in slumber at the edge of the forest right now, I bet. 

Pah.. The ant dismissed its sister. The rest of the mound worshipped not only the Mound Queen but the Mighty Queen as well. The Mighty Queen comes in all forms but always has the same features. Sometimes, the Mighty Queen becomes angry and picks the fruit from the forest beyond the wall leaving the ants with nothing to eat. Sometimes, the Mighty Queen appears with smaller limbs and a rounder face and sits at the wall and greets the ones that come out of the mound. The ants become so ecstatic at this encounter that they begin scurrying to touch the Mighty Queen and the Mighty Queen lets out a yell of booming proportions before taking those that chose to meet her away.

The ant scoffed at the mound, his home. That’s when an idea filled the little ant’s head. It decided to find the Rain Serpent and ask it why the Mighty Queen makes it rain, makes it shine, and just… Why? Rolling over and pumping its legs back to the mound the small ant announced, touching its antennas with everyone he met within the tunnels.

I’m going to find the Rain Serpent. I’m going to find out why the Mighty Queen never speaks to us and tries to kill us but watches us and – 

The poor ants announcement was met with laughter and jeers. You cannot test the Mighty Queen. Have you no faith in our Queen? She sends the Rain Serpent away and meets with us and takes us to the heavens when we die. The ant made its way into the mound’s center tunnel and climbed onto the highest point.

You do not know that. The ant retorted. The Mighty Queen blurs and we cannot see her. She blends into the sky and is large like the creatures past the wall, what if she is just a creature and the Rain Serpent is our savior? The ants looked at him skeptically but listed as the ant went on to describe how the Rain Serpent washes away the dead the kingdom leaves at the wall and how when the air is hot and sticky the Rain Serpent dampens the grounds and gives water to the forest and the plants. He brought up Mrs. Agropyron and how the water from the Rain Serpent took her children but also allowed her to follow them thus removing her pain. The ants soon began to line up side by side as the small ant said that maybe it isn’t the Mighty Queen they should be worshipping but the Rain Serpent until the Mound Queen sauntered into view.

Do you reject my authority? The Mound Queen was ten times, maybe twenty times larger than the small ant; their brains were to small to tell, but they did know that the Mound Queen was descended from the Mighty Queen. Generations after generations, the ants were told the Mighty Queen gave birth to the Mound Queen to rule over the ants and everyone obeyed willingly for fear of bringing down the tragedies of rain and bigger creatures upon their mound. For a long while, no one saw the Mighty Queen. Their little hill was abandoned but around the time the current Mound Queen hatched, the Mighty Queen returned bringing food by putting it beyond the Wall. To the kingdom, this was a sign. A profound and significant sign that was never questioned.

This very fact is why the little ant’s limbs, all 6, maybe 8 of them, began to buckle. His mandibles coming in as he did his best to blend in his red and black body with the dirt before muttering:

I’m going to the Rain Serpent and finding out what the Mighty Queen is. 

If the Mound Queen had nostrils she would have flared them but stared on intently waiting for the ant to finish wary of the hundreds of small black eyes watching from the tunnels. The small ant began to speak, his limbs unbuckling, his head raising as he continued in the most respectful manner that it needed to find out for itself what the world was and as a kind, understanding Queen, she should let it and anyone else seek out the Rain Serpent.

The rest of the ants in the tunnels nodded. However, remembering times of old and how her subjects responded to such ideas, she agreed. She ordered the ant receive a pack of food and that whomsoever wished should join the ant in search of the truth should leave with the ant at daylight meeting outside the mound. Then she dismissed herself with a tiring sigh and went back into her palace made of dirt and leaves to think about what she wanted for supper.

The ant was delighted and spent very little time sleeping but talking about his theories of what the Rain Serpent could tell them to anyone who would listen and the ants listened. Hundreds at a time would come to hear him but as he spoke, the thoughts dawned on the other ants that they enjoyed their lives as it was. What if the Rain Serpent was a treacherous monster and drowned all its visitors? Worse yet was the theory: What if the Mighty Queen didn’t care for the ants at all and that blur they see towering over them didn’t exist? When the dawn came, the ant went outside and was surprised to see that no one had showed up. Not a single soul.

Sad, but determined, the ant marched on. Through the forest his little limbs carried stopping not so often beside a blade of grass to nibble on some food. He came across no one else and when he reached a clearing, he saw the Rain Serpent coiled and huddled and surprisingly connected to the structure the Mighty Queen came out of.

Excuse me, the ant confidently walked over carefully minding his limbs desire to buckle. Are you the Rain Serpent? Of course its the Rain Serpent! The ant mentally kicked itself with its 6 legs for asking a stupid question. At no response, the ant made its way to the very mouth of it under the assumption it was asleep. No noise escaped but its surroundings were damp with water. Hello, I had a couple questions. 

For hours, the little ant had parked itself directly in front of the Rain Serpent waiting for it to wake. Its eyes trained on the gilded mouth that hung open so small to have such an enormous amount of water burst from it. Maybe… The ant slowly walked up to the Rain Serpent before an enormous branch, but really a twig, landed in his path along with an idea that he should tie parts of the branch to his feet and walk into the mouth of the Serpent as maybe the coils were merely a shell and the real creature was inside.

Delighted at his revelation, it cut even pieces of the branch and used pieces of the forest to tie them to his legs. I’m almost as tall as the Queen! The ant pranced around marveling at its newfound height before taking slow steps towards the mouth. The air was damp, like the tunnels after it rains, maybe this was a tunnel!

After the first couple steps, the ant began to hurry and soon began sprinting through the coils of the “Rain Serpent”. The truth was just on the tip of his mandible as he saw a light. A circular bright light that sent him falling as he ran through but it didn’t care. The excitement and the adrenaline flowed through the ant’s small heart in a sensation never felt before by its species. The dampness swallowed the ant when it landed but when its eyes opened, the world at his feet was a forest. No, wait, it was the forest back home but so much smaller as if they had switched sizes. The sun shone overhead and the ant had no twigs on its limbs but saw the sky as it really was without any blurs.

What are you doing here? The ant turned to see Mrs. Agropyron and her boys at her side. The boys rushed towards the ant with hugs and bites. If ants could smile, the ant smiled and beamed. Where am I? Is the Rain Serpent here? 

The Rain Serpent brought us here! Mrs. Agropyron said excitedly. Aren’t you hungry? There’s tables and tables of food beyond the trees over there. She hinted towards the trees with trunks and leaves and a small thought at the back of the ant’s mind remembered climbing an enormous one back home.. What was home? What was the ant searching for again? Why was everything smaller or why did everyone get bigger? These questions pawed at the ant as it followed Mrs. Agropyron and her boys past the trees. It was supper time.


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