The Ant Who Found Heaven - Short Short Story

 The Ant Who Found Heaven

Short Story by David Sky

The ants had lived forever in a world of want, always struggling and surviving only by the barest margins. A lone ant, called Aquarius Sun/Sagittarius Rising, took it upon herself to seek out a better world and left the others behind traveling for days then weeks even months until almost dead from starvation, she turned the corner of the bathroom hall way and through some divine providence or just dumb good luck, who knows with Sagifuckintarius, she made a hard right heading on her last legs and unbeknownst to her at the time - to the kitchen.

She noticed that she began to find some food, then more food, and thought, “It is a miracle, we are saved!”

She had almost given up hope but now her tiny body surged with a second wind and she picked up speed in her excitement. Soon she came to what at first appeared to be another world much bigger then their world she had left and felt in wonder. She discovered that here in this world, there was plenty, that in fact, it was a world of miraculous abundance so much so that she had to wonder if this were not heaven she had so often heard of?

She made the long trip back fortified by the strength gained from foraging in the kitchen and when she showed back up in the colony, they noticed not only that she was back but that she looked really amazing. The Queen gave audience to her and listened to the tale of her long, arduous and lonely adventure to “Heaven” this land of magical abundance beyond belief.

The Queen, of Pentacles, of course, practical bent of mind, thought about this and said, “we do not have enough Workers to make a line to this heaven you speak of, if it be so far as you say, Love, so I don’t know what we can do with it if we cannot move there. I don’t see any practical use, then, anything else would be too great a risk to our Colony since we are struggling well enough as it is here, we dare not take a risk of what little we do have upon something so far away and uncertain as this heaven.”

Aquarius/Sagittarius ant took it hard at first but spent the rest of her days regaling her sisters with her many stories of all the food waiting for them in heaven. The ants loved these stories since they made their hard lives a little bit better just being able to believe that there actually was a Heaven and one of their own had been there. And that is how The Bathroom ants got their ant religion.