I ran over the top of an ant hill today with my lawn mower.
It was the 2nd time in a row I had done so with purpose, though I
run over it every week regardless in order to cut the grass. I sat and watched
as hundreds of ants scurried from their caves widening small holes in the
surface like an inverted meteor shower scampering on top of each other with a
unity about them arming themselves to fix their fort (from my intruding blow) with alacritous speed and burdened backs. I came back around the circle of my
side yard’s mowing circuit to see about half as many ants as before still working like crazy even though I could
no longer see the imprint of my tire in their mound. I thought about how
disheartening it would be for the ant to work so hard to rebuild their fortress
only for me to knock it down every 7 days on Saturday. Does the ant know this
pattern? Can they predict when it’s coming?
The average ant lives only about 40 days which would allow
them to see their hill destroyed only 5 times at what would feel like 12 year
intervals for a human. I thought that maybe I shouldn’t feel bad about it (after
I convinced myself that it may have been a little more vindictive than
necessary). But then I thought that perhaps just once is enough to ruin a life.
Even an ant’s.
