THE QUITE LITTLE EBOOK OF QUITE SHORT STORIES

By MARK BEWLEY

Unusual stories from the social life of ants to stinging nettle creatures, a new super hero, some biblical figures and a laugh or three along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: May 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9783743805996

Book preview

1. ANT WORLD

The great hot orange circular realm high above loomed down on the tiny black industries dots working away mechanically. By instinct the dots attended to their duties with perfection like an old clock. These dots, adults of the insect world, loomed large on Sift a young worker fresh out of Larvae and Ant University. Sift followed his experienced elders in their duties who in turn were keen to teach any young ant in the continuation of the species. The young ant cared for Queen Purity and her young. Feeding them was his main task and what a task. Greedy is not the word for these aggressive, screaming, hungry maggots.

Everything works to time with ants and those receiving instructions are predisposed to the tasks given to them with a complex language comprised of clicks and clacks produced from their large mandibles. They set about their tasks with ease and skill. Scientists and experts have studied these kings of the insect realm for years; however, what they know very little about is the social and recreational activity of the little black insects we lovingly revere as pests.

Sift, a Lasius Niger or garden ant often relaxed with a drink or three of the popular ant beverage strong daisy juice after a heavy shift at the queen’s kindergarten.

The young black worker was exhausted one humid night. He crawled into the lowest hole of the nest and dragged his tired trunk into the tavern.

‘A large one,’ he instructed the heavy-set bar-ant who then squeezed a daisy stem into a leaf cup without even half a smile or click of his mandibles. Sift blinked his big black weary eyes and searched for a seat to rest his sore metasoma. He sat at the first unoccupied grass table of the empty ant drinking hole. When he took the first draught of his sweat flower nectar he half emptied the cup. He breathed heavy and scratched his face with a feeler.

‘Delicious,’ he pronounced with a gulp just as ant chatter came his direction. Sift made the effort to look up:

‘Sift,’ said a rather smooth ant. ‘How are you, my friend?’

‘You’re here, Most,’ Sift returned. ‘I’m recovering from a session with queen Purity and her lovely maggots.’

‘Right you are,’ said Most, the handsome ant, ‘another drink?’

Sift wriggled his feelers. This is the ant equivalent of a nod for yes. He finished his first flower wine just before his friend returned with another.

In relative silence both insects sipped and blinked before Most clacked: ‘Duster and Rapid will be here in a few seconds, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

‘Yes, I know, Rapid can’t go to long without his sauce, can he?’

‘No, he can’t,’ Most laughed, which of course is produced by clicks from his mandibles. Presently Sift had finished his second drink. ‘Want another?’ he asked his friend.

‘Yes, please, oh and a packet of crunchy nettle leaves.’

‘Yuck,’ exclaimed Sift. ‘Right you are, friend.’

Sift approached the bar, still screwing up his ant face at the thought of horrible crunchy nettle leaves. He ignored the elderly ant on a stool at the bar as he placed the empty leaf cups on the counter; ‘same again,’ he instructed the bar-ant and received a blank stare. ‘And a packet of crunchy nettle leaves.’

Presently the senior insect on the stool turned to Sift; ‘I knows that little voice, yes, I thought so, it’s my little nephew Sift the sifter.’

‘Uncle Dirtmuncher,’ acknowledged the little ant; ‘how are you?’

‘Not bad, nephew, not bad at all,’ answered the craggy and peeling ancient worker. ‘How’s that old Purity treating you? If she’s anything like when I worked for her, she’s still an old tyrant.’

‘Oh, she’s not that bad really,’ answered the nephew. ‘Those larvae are a handful, mind you.’

‘I remember, yes they are. You’re right there nephew,’ added the old timer who had only one feeler. ‘I looked after you when you were a wiggly one, you know.’

‘I know uncle.’

Dirtmuncher clacked his mandibles together with mirth: ‘you weren’t a bad sort- good little fellow, really…but I could tell you some tales about those others…dear me that I can…I could go on forever…’

‘Yes, I know uncle.’ Sift whispered this. He had his drinks now, and the packet of crunchy nettle leaves: ‘well, I’ll see you about uncle.’

‘Right you are nephew. Don’t let that Purity get you down.’ Uncle Dirtmuncher smiled antlike sipped his beverage and his sister’s son was sitting with Most again. They slurped at their drinks in silence and observed the watering hole until Most observed his little friend for a few moments with those big black eyes, opened his packet nettle leaves and clacked: ‘Have you heard about those giant beings that live out there?’

‘That have I, Most,’ Sift returned, ‘of course I have, they’re horrible things, worse than wasps.’ The smaller than average ant was awake now; this was one of favourite subjects; the big creatures.

His friend the handsome smooth faced ant Most scanned that weed covered bar, which was now a growing throng of big black insects. His mandibles were wobbling franticly and his mouth more moist than ever when he whispered: ‘the killers some call them.’

‘Actually, experts call them akinds,’ Sift informed his friend with a twitch of his feelers. ‘It’s our nearest word to what they call themselves.’

‘Apparently,’ said Most, with a gormless expression.

‘Well; it is difficult to study their language,’ Sift informed his friend. ‘They speak much slower than we do.’

‘Do they?’

‘Of course they do,’ insisted the small ant, an authority on the subject. ‘And they mumble awfully. They are bigger and probably more stupid than us too.’

‘Have you see one, then?’

‘Since you’re asking, Most my old friend, I have actually,’ the little ant answered with honest pride.

Most pulled up his little grass chair. He sat more firmly on his metasoma and purred with anticipation. ‘Tell me more Sift,’ he insisted, still munching crunchy nettle leaves.

Sift wiggled a feeler: ‘Well, I was taking out the rubbish for the old queen one time, hot it was. The orange universe was massive overhead, closer than I’ve ever known it, when high above me this