“And your point is……?” Weeny, named for his diminutive size, gazed enquiringly from unseeing ocelli at his half-brother.
“My point is obvious,” Marshal replied, jaws bristling. “We always build sharp sides North South along magnetic lines, broad sides East to West.” He released an acidic cloud of pheromones to indicate his exasperation. “The colony has flourished, expanded, and order has been maintained. That’s reason good enough to stick with traditional architectural plans.”
But with success had come drawbacks. The colony had expanded to its geophysical limit; it was time to either build the city higher, much higher, or explore new frontiers.
“Couldn’t there be a third way, – more effort-efficient, productive, safer?” Weeny, the more thoughtful of the siblings, replied undaunted. “Reverse construction: – broad side north-south, narrow east-west. We would retain our core heat longer, so increasing our foraging ability, with the energy to build up even higher, or ……would we overheat and fry?” Weeny was indefatigable in his quest for solutions to the community’s housing need. He mistook Marshall’s silence for yet another rejection and wrinkling his pallid skin until it speckled pink (well he had no shoulders to shrug!) resigned himself and turned away.
I shouldn’t be so hard on the fellow; maybe he does have a point. Queenie, if impressed, might ennoble me, and favour me with one of her daughters. With a band of hand-picked workers (would I be permitted to take Weeny?) and fellow soldiers, we could fly off into the sunset and establish a new kingdom.
Encroaching ants fled entrapment as, lost in reverie, sticky saliva dripped from his single battle- scarred antenna. Pulling himself together, he returned to duty distributing the protective glue over the edifice’s central area housing Queenie and her precious brood.
The Council heard him out, retired, reconvened, and declared. Marshall’s proposition was rejected; expansion would continue skywards on a north south orientation; there’d be no royal bride for him and no re-colonisation. Despairing, he refused succour, became increasingly listless, neglected his sentry duty, and missed the signs of the impending invasion.
“Looks like it worked Daa… they’re waving at us.” Young Simon gave his father’s hand a squeeze, before running up to the nearest mound. He approached the tufts fluttering from the flagpoles of ruined termite tubules, stooped, and pulled out a handful of tiny threads. The nematodes, engorged by the feast of recently desiccated larvae, slipped out spaghetti smooth. Simon’s attention was caught by a single jet-black aerial escaping the wriggling mass “This soldier’s only got one antenna.”
Simon’s father had taught him termite taxonomy and body structure hoping he would one day take over the family business. “It’s common in the veterans; they’ve survived so many attacks; last post sounded though for this Braveheart. Put him down now. We’ll plough tomorrow. The crop’ll be tiptop, fertilised by all these body parts.”
They turned and reached home as the setting sun reflected from the farmstead’s nameplate, optimistically premature. “Nkosi and Son, Natural Nematode Pest Control.”
