Mystified

Dozing in my hammock, I awake from my concrete slumber. Brush away the pine straw and watch a thousand ants following pheromone highways. Hop across the creek and spot a grasshopper chomping on a blade of grass. Squint into the flickering sunlight at powdery yellow butterfly wings flapping through the forest.

Pick an ant and watch it taste sweet tree nectar. Burp out a gross bark splinter floating in the sticky amber and bump into an old friend dragging a white flower bud, no time for chit-chat, you go left, Ill go right. Round the tree trunk, dive into a pinecone, stop to smell the mushroom and scurry beneath the pine straw. Merge onto the pheromone highway, exit under grass blade 23. Swallow a fat ball of snail slime and its back to work. Push one last dirt clump up the hill and off to bed. Forget about the stomachache, life isnt fair. Look theres a sheep, run six meters east and climb a blade of grass. Feel the hot stench of sheep breath caressing my exposed abdomen and clamp onto the grass. Lock the mandible in place and prepare for death. Wish I could have been the queen.






The idea here was that this ant is infected with the Lancet Fluke parasite.

While writing this I became fascinated by the idea of a story written from the perspective of someone or something suffering a delusion, and being unable to escape that delusion, or even recognize that it is a delusion. Several difficulties arise, but the primary one, is how to let the reader realize that the author, or ant, is delusional. I could resort to making it obvious, by a series of contradictions or memory lapses, illogical thoughts, but the story seems to lose some of its flavor, especially in cases where the delusion might not be well known or is shared by the general public. Perhaps I can do no better than simply rereading Notes From Underground.