“Here you are, Meir. Well, did you find out when the marriage flight will be?
An ant named Yafit was restless, because he did not understand how much time he still had to please the largest number of females.
“Not exactly, one of the queen's guards said we'll figure it out ourselves when it all starts.
- Meir spoke abstractly and in a rather calm tone, as if he did not care at all about this issue.
— Is that all? Is that all she said? Yes, as much as possible already, they seem to be mocking us. Tired of being kept in constant ignorance. Seriously, Meir, these working females do not consider us to be ants at all, they behave arrogantly and, probably, perceive us as some kind of raw material, as if we were twigs or food.
- Calm down, Yafeet. Do you really care what they think of you?
“I don’t give a damn about those barren females. I only care about our girls. How good are they. Have you seen their wings? They are gorgeous. I think these wings are the most beautiful thing in the world. My life will be meaningless if I get only a couple of leaves from this tree. Understand?
Meir was still in thought, and he practically did not hear the words of his interlocutor. He was nice to Yafit, but his words sounded like the same broken record that sounds from every guy in the colony. He was already used to not focusing on all this talk about females, praising their wings and so on. Yafit was distinguished only by the fact that it was possible to talk with him about anything else.
“Hey Meir, are you even here?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here,” he replied, still distantly.
- What are you thinking about? You look like you saw a bird.
- Yes, so ... I'm trying to understand everything that I've learned lately.
- And what is it? Are you telling me something?
“Where to start… well, when I went to ask about the nuptial flight, as you asked, I managed to overhear the queen’s conversation with some other females…”
- You saw her? The guys say that few people know her - with his usual temper, Yafit continued to chatter.
“No, I haven’t seen her… In general, it seems to me that our queen is a little crazy.
- In terms of? - Yafit was even indignant at such impudence towards the queen.
She calls everyone strangely. He calls himself a blockchain, I still don’t understand the girls either as investors or users. And he calls us… ICO. What is it all about?
- I do not know this. But I am sure that I will be the best ICO in the world. The colony needs active and aggressive ants like me. And then there will be a bunch of lazy people, there will be no one to equip and protect the house.
Why are you so sure that they care about who you are? Maybe we will all participate in the mating flight?
— Meir-Meir, don't make me laugh. Of course, we can all fly together, but the girls are not so stupid as to pay attention to everyone. They will only choose the worthy, like me. Look how many unremarkable guys are in our colony. They are no different from each other. Sometimes I don’t even understand how they are still alive. Not like you and me. We are the foundation of the colony and future generations.
“I don’t want to upset you, but actually the basis of the colony is working females. Without them, our home would not exist, there would be no infrastructure, there would not be all these paths that we walk along; no one would bring food or feed the queen; no one would look after baby ants; no one would protect our colony from other ants and other creatures - they all do it. We only enjoy the fruits of their labors.
“Yes, but without us there won't be any new ants. We are interested in girls. We, not all these workers. I somehow even pretended to be one of them to make sure of this. I tried to imitate the work, but our winged beauties did not even look in my direction. Therefore, I am sure that only thanks to us the colony will become stronger.
Why don't you tell me how the others reacted? Meir wanted to bring his friend back to earth. “Yafit, everyone laughed at you and your attempts to be like someone else. More precisely, at the beginning they laughed, and then they did not let you do ... something that you were trying to do there.
“I was thinking of taking the pebble,” Yafit corrected his interlocutor, offended, and was clearly not happy with such an attitude.
- No, you're good, really good. You at least tried, albeit pursuing your own goals.
Meir did not want to upset Yafit, but only to remove the crown from his head, which in itself made him a little pissed off. Meir decided to take a short pause so that Yafit could cool down a bit. But then he decided to continue, because he felt that since he started talking about all this, he needed to finish the job to the end.
“There’s something else…” Meir began somehow hesitantly, as if he wanted to prepare his friend for something more unpleasant.
- What else? Did you overhear anything else from the Queen's words? Or will you again protect your dear friends who do not care about your attitude towards them?
- Yes, I do not defend ... - Meir became thoughtful and realized that he was not obliged to justify himself and continued the initial thought. - In short, I talked with one of the foragers. Well, you get it, one of those who brings food to babies...
- Well, and what, how quickly did she send you so as not to interfere? - Yafit did not even try to hide the causticity of his words.
- Not the point ... In general, I wanted to ask her why the workers have such a dismissive attitude towards us, towards ICO, towards males, call it what you want.
- Yes, they are barren because, that’s why they are furious, that’s business. - Yafit did not let up.
Meir tried not to pay attention to this impudent attack and told the story as if nothing had happened.
She said we were like guests to them. They come, do their "guest" business and leave. And that's all. They do not stay in the house, you do not need to take care of them. The main thing is to behave normally at a party.
- Some kind of smut...
- That's not all. I asked her how they felt about the queen and if she was all right. Do you know what she answered?
- What?
“That the queen is not the main one, although everyone probably thinks the opposite, just like you and me, by the way.
How is this not the main one? She is the queen, without her there would be no our colony and all these ants. - Yafit's indignation rose another couple of degrees.
“She said that the management of the colony is really in the hands of the worker ants. They treat the queen like a milch aphid, which maintains the population of the colony, therefore they constantly provide her with food and protection.
- What makes you think that everything that this forage woman said is true? Maybe she's mocking you and laughing somewhere right now. Meir, don't be so naive. And anyway, even if this is true, why would she tell all this, especially to you?
“Nuptial flight…” Meir answered frustratedly.
— What is the mating flight? notes of fear appeared in Yafit's words.
- I feel there is not much time left before the wedding flight, so she told me.
“I still don’t understand what the marriage flight has to do with it.
Meir hesitated a little, not knowing how to say it better.
“Okay, how do you think the nuptial flight will take place?”
- It's easy. We'll fly with the girls and hang out with them. I think each of us would like to visit with the largest number of winged beauties ...
- Okay, then what?
“Umm… I don’t know, I was only thinking about the mating flight itself.” We'll probably continue hanging out with the girls.
“Let us die later, Yafit.
Meir felt that he could no longer soften the blow of his words, so he decided it was best to say it like it is. Yafit was numb and didn't know how to react.
- How can we breathe? We're only a couple of weeks away. The rest of the ants are already out for several months or even years, and the queen even more.
“These are all worker ants, Yafit. Tell me, have you seen at least one male ant who lived for a couple of years? Even one guy who came back from the wedding flight and told how cool everything went? I don't think so, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen or heard of them either. Do you know why? I think because they don't exist. After the nuptial flight, we will no longer be needed. Nobody. Not to these investor-user girls, because after they get everything they need from us, they will fly away. We are not needed and the colony, because we are not workers, we are drones. We do not bring anything new to the colony, but only use what we have. We can't survive on our own, you know?
Fear enveloped Yafit even more. He began to remember all the males that he had met in his entire short life, and there really was not a single old man among them. Is Meir really right, and after the wonderful moment that he had been waiting for so long, such a sad end would follow? He did not want to believe it, but he saw that his friend was not joking and was himself in a broken state from such news. Should we thank the forage woman for revealing to them the truth, which they themselves would eventually come to, or hate and be angry with her? Yafeet didn't know.
- What do we do? Not to fly on the mating flight? - finally managed to say Yafit.
— I don't know… I think we should fly. What else is left? We don't know anything more. Let's do our "guest" business and leave. Maybe we will be so good that we will be invited to visit again. Let's see. We just have to be sure that the next generation that we give birth will be better and live longer.
- Yes, I think you're right ... Well, let's have some fun in the end?
- They flew.
Note of uncertain importance: I am not an ant specialist. Basically, the behavior patterns that are inherent in ants are presented here, but a couple belong only to the crypto world. I just hope that my crazy metaphors are quite understandable))
And one more thing: I was warned that the art style is not particularly held in high esteem on Habré, as well as the topic of the crypt. It was interesting to combine these things and test this statement.
Source: habr.com