The Oarsman

by Zubin Mathai

The three ants, the last of the once-great colony and daughters of the queen doomed to misfortune, marched through the heat of the day. Eventually, the sun set, unseen animals quieted down, and the coolness of the night took over. Stars came out to twinkle, and the little worker was tricked, thinking that those points above must be as small as she.

  “Where are we going to look for a new home?” asked the princess, ending her question with a little test-flap of her delicate wings.

  The worker looked to the east, to where the pink petal borne onto the wind had disappeared, and she only motioned silently with one front leg in that direction. She turned to look at the princess, to see if she understood, and a tiny nod returned was good enough.

  Bringing up the rear, marching with a purpose strong enough to mask the pain in her belly, the soldier kept her one eye constantly scanning. At one sudden point in the night, she tapped her leg into the dirt in a rhythm that any ant would understand. The princess and worker froze, for they recognized the warning of danger.

  A coyote in the distance howled up to the missing moon, and the worker tensed, never having heard such a sound before. Even now, with two companions, she was still afraid of the strangeness of this world. The howl faded into an echo, and its vibrations came to remind her that without the walls of a nest, or circle of surrounding sisters, she was vulnerable. She ran past the princess and under beneath the legs of the soldier, and the princess stifled a giggle when she saw an adult so scared.

  “What is it? asked the worker of her big friend.

  “It feels as if something follows us,” said the soldier, and her antennae moved in arcs, tuning in and reaching out for any clues that might shed light on her feeling.

  After a few seconds, with the only thing keeping them company silence and an air cool enough to settle into every cranny, the soldier shrugged and told her companions to restart the march.

  Far up above them, beyond the limit of what they could feel, a shape hovered against the backdrop of stars. It’s legs hung relaxed beneath its yellow striped body, and its wings beat into a transparent blur. When it starting moving again, an angry droning could be heard, and the starlight outlined a stinger with the sharpest of points.

  The wasp focused on these travelers and followed them for the rest of the night and into the shifting oranges of early dawn. When they stopped to rest, so did the wasp, either hovering or landing on a twig to run its legs across its stinger. It especially stared at the soldier ant, and how tiny it was compared to it. The wasp, a yellow and black striped soldier, a hater of filthy ants, knew another soldier when it saw one. Not only a soldier, the wasp thought, but a weakened and battle-worn one, missing an eye.

  By mid-morning, the ants had come to a clearing, which to them was an expansive desert, and cutting right through the middle of it, was the deepest of ravines. They looked to their left and right, and could see no way across. The soldier did not like this area, for their was no cover, no protection. Her brain churned, her antenna honed, and she thought she felt a faint buzzing overhead, as if something had been hovering, but then zoomed away.

  “We have not come across any other ants so far,” said the soldier. “No colonies, no signs of any place that could be a new home. I think we should change direction.”

  The worker only stared to the east and let her eyes blur. She hoped for a daydream to come, to offer up clues once more, but all that came was the shimmer of rising heat in the distance. She turned to her friends, and they could see the look of disappointment on her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped, dropping her head, knowing she had no real reason to continue east.

  The princess stood at the edge of the ravine and jumped up and down, sending a few grains of sand tumbling over the edge. “If you want to go east, let us go east!” she yelled in excitement. She spun around on her next hop, and looked down the cliff-side opening up beneath her. “We can easily pass this,” she said. “I could probably even carry you two over!”

  Without letting her words sink in, the princess ran right over the edge and began furiously flapping her wings — wings still not grown —and she dropped like a stone. The soldier shoved the worker aside and ran to the ravine, falling to her tummy and sliding up to the edge. As she angled her head so she could peer over, she dropped her antennae in happy relief. The princess had landed on a little ledge, a few inches from the top, but still above a treacherous drop-off.

  “Give me your leg!” shouted the soldier as she reached for her princess. The princess only giggled, not seeing the seriousness of the situation, and slowly raised one of her legs. The soldier tried to reach for the tiny one, but she was just beyond her grasp.

  “Don’t worry, I can do this,” said the worker as she stepped up to stare over.

  “You aren’t strong enough!” said the soldier, looking left and right, desperately trying to find a solution.

  “Yes I am. I am a worker.”

  The worker offered up her hind legs to the soldier, and then moved as close as possible to the edge. To the princess, this was all a game, but to the worker it was torturous torment. She tried blurring her eyes, but that didn’t work, and as she was lowered, all she could see was that drop-off to a certain death. Grains of sand tumbled and smashed into pebbles and rocks, and then kept falling beyond. But, thankfully, the worker was able to grab the princess’ leg and hold on tight. The worker called out to her friend and the soldier began pulling them up.

  At top, the princess did a few happy hops at the adventure, as the soldier raced over to check on her. The worker only fell to the ground, stroking herself with her antenna to try and regain calmness and composure. She looked over and sadly noticed her friend fawning over the tiny princess, but then smiled when the soldier finally asked if she was okay.

  Before she could answer, a breeze came to caress the worker’s head, and she perked up. She jumped to her feet and stared up to the sky, scanning the washed out blue, looking for any hint of pink.

  The breeze came again, this time, accompanied by a strange vibration.

  “Pardon me, my ladies,” rang out a voice with baritone words, deep enough to vibrate through the ants’ bodies and make the princess giggle.

  The ants saw a tank of a beetle, shiny and black, with a small head and rotund body, march on through with a purpose. Before they could respond, another passed by, this one a little less polite and only offering a slight nod. Soon another and another passed, until the bulk of the army came through, thousands of glistening beetles, enough to make the ground tremble from the pounding of purposed feet. Bringing up the rear was the largest beetle of them all, an old and slow one, its head eclipsed by the mammoth body its tiny legs had to support.

  This last beetle stopped when it saw the ants, and looked down at them for a focused second. It slowly spun to stare at the disturbed sand by the edge of the ravine, then held itself as still as the sun above, and began reading the scene.

  “I see you stopped here, wanting to cross the ravine. I see this pattern in the sand where one went over, probably the tiny one, and then the medium one was lowered by the big one to pull her up. Here, a few happy hops were made, and the medium one flopped down.”

  The beetle paused to let the ants show their amazement, with three mouths agape, and five antennae frozen in awe, before continuing, “This ravine is not a problem, my elongated friends. If you want to cross it, come with me. I can help.”

  Leading them along the edge of the ravine, the beetle walked slow and quiet, going around pebbles as the princess hopped over, or pushing aside blades of grass as the worker kept right behind in his wake. The beetle led them to where his kin had stopped, where they were a shiny, excited and throbbing mass at the base of a old, bent-over tree.

  The tree was gnarled and gray, more like the color of stones than the richness of other trees, and a few of its naked, dying branches were overhanging the ravine. The sun lay bare the cracks of the tree’s trunk, turning them into golden rivers, and turning its branches into
black cracks against the washed-out blue.

  The worker stared up, taking in the tree’s height, not as imposing as some other trees, but still an easy giant next to her. Something seemed very gentle about this tree, as it stood defiant to the rising heat of the day, and so the ant went right up to it and touched it. Even though the bark was rough and dry, something in the touch back from that tree calmed the ant.

  “The tree is looking right at you,” said the beetle, rising up on its hind legs to get a better look. “It has taken an interest in you. Can you see it?”

  “No,” answered the worker.

  “Sometimes, when you get still, and nature feels like playing, she will share secrets with you,” said the beetle as he dropped back to the ground. “Climb up the tree, go to that large, knotted hole you see in the middle, and you might be able to hear the voice of this old, wise agent of the wild.”

  The worker looked up to where the hole was, ringed with a lip of knotted wood, and trembled at the thought of going to such a height. Ants are not meant to be so far up off the ground, she thought. But she still had one leg up and touching the bark of the gentle giant, and a calmness began flowing through her. She decided to blur her eyes, and let a daydream bring her some courage.

  She crawled up the dry bark, and in her mind, she was crawling up a vine ripe with green, succulent leaves, while her colony sisters were all gathered below to cheer her on. She stepped across branches, and they were instead little glowing caterpillars giving pushes of encouragement. She wound her way around the trunk, and stopped on a small branch right next to the shadowed hole. In her mind, the hole was the farthest from scary, for it was a mouth blowing out warm and sweet kisses.

  “Hello, my little friend,” came a rumbling voice, vibrating the whole tree with each of its words, and comforting the ant like a warm patch of sun on a cool day.

  “What troubles you, my tiny one,” said the tree.

  The ant lay down on the branch, wrapping her legs down the side of it in a hug, and paused for a second, hoping to feel a hug back. For a moment, all she felt was the dry and rough wood against her abdomen and legs, and her lone antenna drooped down.

  “I never felt at home in that colony,” said the ant, resting her head against the trunk. “But, at least I felt safe. Now the colony is no more, and I am out here in this wilderness, feeling neither at home nor safe. This world is so scary to an ant.”

  “But you are no ordinary ant,” said the tree after a thoughtful pause. “Other ants have randomly climbed my trunk, many insects of other kinds too, but you are the first one to give me a hug.”

  The little worker smiled at this, and wrapped her tiny legs even tighter around the branch beneath her.

  “Where are you and your friends going?”

  “We are heading east. I saw a petal on the wind going in that direction, and it called out to me. That petal, even though it makes no sense, seemed to be calling me to a new home.”

  The tree shook a little, a rippling vibration sending joy through the ant’s body, and she thought that maybe the tree was laughing.

  “My little friend,” said the tree with a sigh of branches, “a hundred years ago I was young, young like you. I had leaves, and bark that was smooth and soft. And at the tips of each of my branches, I had flowers that bloomed every year with pink petals.”

  The worker perked up at this, and her antenna lifted in curiosity.

  “At the end of each season, when the flowers were ready to go, winds would come and strip them bare. A wave of my pink petals would always be carried off on blessed currents to the east. I would miss those flowers terribly, but still bid them good journey.”

  The tree curled one of its branches towards the ant, trying to pat her on her head, but the branch — and tree — were too old and dried-out to succeed.

  “So, my friend,” continued the tree in its rumbling voice, “I encourage you to follow the dream in your heart, planted there by a glimpse of something magical. Head east, to where the sun rises, to where it gives first light to these lands, and find where your home might be.”

  The worker had no response to give, for she felt a silence from the tree, like the empty space after a wistful sigh, and it was large enough to live in. She lay her head down and thought she could rest for a while, not yet ready to leave this gentle friend or continue her journey.

  Minutes passed, as the sun rose higher in the sky, and shone down a stifling heat. The bark and branches of the tree grew warmer, and the air all around began rippling burning waves.

  “When I was young,” said the tree with a rumble that startled the resting ant, “I did not know a lot of this world. Trees are born with love, if you are curious, and we love by offering shade.”

  “When I had full branches, covered in leaves, I was happy for scorching days like this. I would wake in the morning and stand patiently, twiddling my branch tips, just hoping for a tired animal to come seeking a cooler place to rest. When any living thing came to take my shade, it made me happiest tree ever.”

  The tree paused, and the ant looked down to see the countless beetles, so far below, begin a slow, circular swarm around the base of the trunk.

  “But, on a day years ago, when I lost all my leaves and flowers, and felt old and tired for the first time, I cried. I cried into the night, shaking off branches that abandoned me too easily, and no other trees were nearby to ever comfort me. How would I ever be able to continue sharing what is in my heart, if I could not offer shade?”

  The beetles at the base of the trunk began climbing, in a random tangle of motion, and the worker could feel the tree shake under the thousands of tiny feet marching across its bark.

  “These little friends came along a couple years ago and taught me how to love again,” said the tree, “taught me that love could come in all forms.”

  Beetles fanned out onto every branch, lining up from tips to bases, and stepping over the ant as necessary. Quite quickly, every last corner of the tree was covered in the round, glistening shapes. As the beetles moved into position, gripping tightly and beating their wings for balance, a shade grew under the tree, spreading outward, a pulsating shade.

  It was not long before a squirrel came out from between two rocks, near the edge of the ravine, and ran to the tree to lie down in the buzzing coolness, resting its head against the tree’s rough bark. Even through the overwhelming wall of vibration, from the tens of thousands of beetles covering every branch, the ant felt a gentle, wooden sigh of bliss.

  “These beetles give me back my shade for a few hours each day, give me back my purpose and love, and through them, I learned to also love differently. And, now I will offer my love to you, my little ant, by helping you on your journey.

  A silence followed these words from the tree, and the ant could feel that silence move up from the trunk — possibly even from its dying roots — and spread to each and every waiting branch. Beetles began shifting positions, a few hundred here and there, and then a large faction moved to the end of the longest branch. As more beetles began shifting, the long branch began dipping down under the weight, until its tip delicately kissed the ground on the far side of the ravine.

  A wave began undulating through the rest of the beetles, and the worker felt itself get picked up and passed along, from beetle to beetle, across that long branch, and then to the ground just beyond the ravine. She looked over and saw the soldier and princess get picked up from the ground where they stood, passed upwards and over by the beetles, until they were deposited right next to her too.

  The beetles on the branch re-shifted, and soon the branch sprung back to its original place, bouncing ever so slightly, as if a hand waving a bidding of good journey. The ants saw a jackrabbit bound out from some grass and hop to the tree, curl up and rest, and the worker was happy to see love shining down. The worker looked to the soldier and smiled, and the soldier and princess smiled back. They all looked at each other, and then noticed the beetle, the wise and very round one from before, was
standing there too.

  “Well, my friends,” said the beetle from its tiny head atop its tank-like body, “I think I’ll accompany you. This old beetle could use another adventure.”

  seven

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