Today the dead lie heaped on the field of battle.
I bend over them, using a magnifying glass given me by one of my sisters, and see a few of them still battling with one another, their mandibles locked on an enemy’s thorax or backside, helped by a comrade to kill one more of the foe.
I bend over them, using a magnifying glass given me by one of my sisters, and see a few of them still battling with one another, their mandibles locked on an enemy’s thorax or backside, helped by a comrade to kill one more of the foe.
The battle has gone on for over twenty-four hours, and the slow movement of these hardy little soldiers speaks of their exhaustion. During yesterday’s fighting, both sides carried off the corpses, dragging them back to their colonies, so that the battlefield remained remarkably uncluttered by the dead. This morning, however, the dead ants, piled up like the Roman milites after the battle of Cannae, tell me there are so many of the dead and so few of the living that the collection of the slain will take a long time and will perhaps never be finished.
The battle took place at the top of the stairs leading into my basement apartment. The two colonies engaged in the struggle were, I surmised, not more than eight feet apart, located in the cracks in the cement of the faux-stone sidewalk. As I watched the ants throughout the day, the battle slowly shifted from the colony on the right ascendant side of the steps to the left, which is where the dead now lie lumped together. Twice yesterday it rained, one a spring shower, the other a heavy downpour accompanied by a strong wind, but I was in town then and do not know whether the ants continued fighting through the bad weather.
One humorous moment occurred while this slaughter was taking place. Between the two colonies was a tiny trench separating the top step from the patio, and ants were hurrying to and fro in the trench. An insect I didn’t recognize, smaller than a pill bug, approached and kept trying to cross the trench, but retreated each time he met an ant. Finally, he shot into the trench, brushed past two ants, and scuttled up the other side to safety and freedom, leaving the mayhem behind him.
Leaning closer to the battlefield a few minutes ago, I blew a sharp breath at one of the hillocks of the dead. Several ants ran wildly about, but the rest scattered and remained inert, tiny husks slain in a battle as important to their colony as any battle fought in human history. One colony—I believe the one on the left—will survive. The other will die.
Ants fight by instinct. One colony attacks another for food. The other colony resists. Generally, the army with the most soldiers wins the war.
Now for a look at the day’s news.
This morning in Kabul, Afghanistan, a truck bomb killed 80 people and wounded hundreds more. In Syria, Iranian-backed forces are massing troops near a US training facility, and Russia fired two cruise missiles at ISIS targets. In countries like Egypt and Indonesia, the persecution and murder of religious minorities continues. In response to a terrorist bombing in London, the government has stationed soldiers at such places as Westminster Palace and Parliament. The ongoing war in Afghanistan is now by far the longest war our country has ever fought.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” This adage, which applies both to ants and to people, I accept as an absolute truth. A shameful truth, but a truth nonetheless.
One shame of that truth derives from the cruel means by which we humans fight our wars today and in the past—murdering men, women, and children with truck bombs and drone missiles, with fire and sword in earlier times.
Once, like ants, tribes and nations warred against each other for food or territory. Those motivations still hold sway in some areas of the globe, but today it is much more common to kill others for their religious or political beliefs, or in the case of the terrorists, to kill innocents in order to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies or to drive some government from power.
The blind motivations of the ants are by far the nobler.
The battle took place at the top of the stairs leading into my basement apartment. The two colonies engaged in the struggle were, I surmised, not more than eight feet apart, located in the cracks in the cement of the faux-stone sidewalk. As I watched the ants throughout the day, the battle slowly shifted from the colony on the right ascendant side of the steps to the left, which is where the dead now lie lumped together. Twice yesterday it rained, one a spring shower, the other a heavy downpour accompanied by a strong wind, but I was in town then and do not know whether the ants continued fighting through the bad weather.
One humorous moment occurred while this slaughter was taking place. Between the two colonies was a tiny trench separating the top step from the patio, and ants were hurrying to and fro in the trench. An insect I didn’t recognize, smaller than a pill bug, approached and kept trying to cross the trench, but retreated each time he met an ant. Finally, he shot into the trench, brushed past two ants, and scuttled up the other side to safety and freedom, leaving the mayhem behind him.
Leaning closer to the battlefield a few minutes ago, I blew a sharp breath at one of the hillocks of the dead. Several ants ran wildly about, but the rest scattered and remained inert, tiny husks slain in a battle as important to their colony as any battle fought in human history. One colony—I believe the one on the left—will survive. The other will die.
Ants fight by instinct. One colony attacks another for food. The other colony resists. Generally, the army with the most soldiers wins the war.
Now for a look at the day’s news.
This morning in Kabul, Afghanistan, a truck bomb killed 80 people and wounded hundreds more. In Syria, Iranian-backed forces are massing troops near a US training facility, and Russia fired two cruise missiles at ISIS targets. In countries like Egypt and Indonesia, the persecution and murder of religious minorities continues. In response to a terrorist bombing in London, the government has stationed soldiers at such places as Westminster Palace and Parliament. The ongoing war in Afghanistan is now by far the longest war our country has ever fought.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” This adage, which applies both to ants and to people, I accept as an absolute truth. A shameful truth, but a truth nonetheless.
One shame of that truth derives from the cruel means by which we humans fight our wars today and in the past—murdering men, women, and children with truck bombs and drone missiles, with fire and sword in earlier times.
Once, like ants, tribes and nations warred against each other for food or territory. Those motivations still hold sway in some areas of the globe, but today it is much more common to kill others for their religious or political beliefs, or in the case of the terrorists, to kill innocents in order to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies or to drive some government from power.
The blind motivations of the ants are by far the nobler.
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