Spectrum

Copyright © 2014 by Silvia Delphinus aka HicUPCAKES

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, e-mail writer or leave message on blog.

(In other words, I will slash your wrists if you do not oblige to thy statement. Wait and see)

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Chapter 1      

"Have you ever thought about ants?" Dad asked.

I shrugged. "Apart from the fact that they get all over sandwiches at picnics,I can't say I've ever given them much thought."

The two of us were sprawled on the ugly pink mattress on the countryside. The Sunday Shrewsbury sun weighed on the back of my neck like a brick. The aroma of flowers and freshly baked mud lingered on the heavy atmosphere. 

A buzzing bee whizzed past my ear. I flinched. Ants I was ambivalent about, but bees still spooked me. I watched in great agony as my Nutella sandwich was being demolished by an army of ants and a hovering furry speck of venom.

As if on cue, Mom arrived and scooped  up the sandwich and dismissed the bee. She knocked off the black dots on the sandwich and ate it with ease. Laughing, she said, " I thought you like insects."

"No Mom, studying BIology and keeping an insect Wikipedia, does not demonstrate that I am a huge fan of bugs, let alone ants and bees."

See here, my Mom was a brilliant biologist, an entomology to be exact, one that studies in insects. She would go on trips to uncover new insect species, bringing a few specimens back home. But due to the new queer environment we provide them with they either die bluntly of fright or of a lack of resources.

"Let's talk about ants," Mom walked over to a small pile of dried earth that was shaped into a miniature hill in a patch of grass. She gestured me to follow her, giving Dad a chance to stuff his face in a non- chivalry way.

I rolled my weight off the pink duvet and walked a cross to where Mom was crouching. "An anthill," I said with little enthusiasm. Black dots were wandering aimlessly around the scorching mounds of the ground. Sure, I had seen parades of ants marching in a loose pack, but never have I seen such great mass crammed together.

"Can you see they're not moving together?" Mom squealed in delight as she lowered her back to squint even harder at those insignificant beings. No two ants were heading in the same direction, and each one seemed  to change direction for no particular reason at moment's notice. "They're moving randomly," I said. "It's like the Brownian motion, except they are organisms, not air particles. They are reacting to something that we can't see."

"Exactly. That leads to our first explanation." Mom said."The drunkard's walk. It's a great way of finding stuff. True, though they all go in random and different directions, they cover a large surface area, unlike those who walk logically, in straight lines and criss cross paths. Now let me show you something," She gave me a brief wink, and glided towards a jar of honey on the other family's picnic sheet. She dipped in a crisp plucked dewy grass into the golden goodness.

I was horrified, at the same time amused. "Mom, you can't just do that! You can't just go dipping non-sterilized objects into people's food without their permission!" She bluntly ignored me, and went back to the anthill occasionally dripping honey hither and thither. "You see, honey is a densely sugary kind of food. Ants like sugar. Ants..."

Mom's words were cut short by the loud reverberation Dad made from shuffling the picnic sheets. He was packing up. "They are advancing near, my ladies." He smiled. "Time to hop on the car."