Harvesting
Their bodies expand as they consume more of the meat, storing it in their social stomachs, and trading it among themselves in a kiss-like fashion. You observe as numerous ants saw off large chunks of meat and begin carrying it deeper within the nest. Your mandibles begin to cramp in anticipation of digging themselves deep into the meaty flesh of this dead animal. The smell of rot has never been so sweet to your senses, and you lose track of what you had originally set out to do.
The hairy white tendrils of fur hang down loosely; a perfect size for your rough hands to grab on to, your muscular arms exert enough force to send your body shooting up the spines of hair until you eventually make it to the top of the creature. The flies buzz around you like horses with wings, they bump into the dead body causing the whole thing to quake, you nearly lose your footing but you skillfully regain your balance.
Fellow ants group themselves around the open holes leading into the body of the carcass, they dig out the soft inner flesh first after having worked their way through a hole somewhere in the eye, mouth, ears, or anus of the creature. And looks to you like they’ve started from the mouth. Jagged fangs point in all directions as the mouth loosely hangs open, a perfect entrance for a hungry colony of ants.
You line up to take your turn to grab some of the soft fleshy insides of your new scavenged prey. The smells within the moist flesh mouth of the creature overtake you and nearly drive you crazy as you saw off mouthfuls of rotting meat. You gulp down mouthfuls of the bloody pink masses, filling your social stomach with a heavy mixture meant for your queen back at the hive. In that moment you forget anything you could have ever known just to ravenously consume many times your own weight in this delicious flesh left out just for your colony.
The thick flesh weighs heavy in your body, you can feel the stretching of the finer skin between your carapace make way for a heavier load. You almost bypass the limitations of your body just to gorge your maw with endless loads of the meat.
Your ravenous consumption barely let you notice the ants lined up behind you. Having already used up most of your feeding time, your sisters begin pressuring you to make room for the hungrier of the ants. Despite this, you greedily decide to saw off a few more mouthfuls to help bring to the queen as well.
“Might as well treat her ‘majesty’ with some respect if I’ll be working for her for a while now.” You think to yourself, looking around a small camp stationed nearby the carcass. The settlement is meant for efficiency, as the ravenous ants would chop up the meat, transfer it to quicker ants to run it along to the queen, then repeat the cycle until the break down the entire carcass.
Your feet carry you over to your talkative friend once again, now being in a more compassionate mood after your meal.
“Hey again,” you say to her. “So we’re setting up camp here?” you ask her.
“Yes!” She said excitedly. “We’re low on transporter ants so I’ll be doing that from now till… uh.. Later?” she says in the same bubbly tone that followed you days prior.
“Oh? What’s that supposed to mean… Again?” you ask nervously. Your sister’s face looks happy, as if she’s prepared to explain this concept for you.
“That! Just means that I camp out here, we transfer food from our stomachs and I deliver it to the brood back with the queen.” Your memory is suddenly jogged, that’s right! You had to look for the queen for some answers. Though you don’t particularly remember why.
In the meantime, you decide to at least finish your task until the rat has been taken care of. As the colony wouldn’t want to attract any unwanted attention.
You spend the rest of your time chopping up the remainder of the rat for your colony. Your friend assists you by passionately transferring stomachs full of food to and from each other in order to properly nourish the entire colony. Over the next few days, you can easily lose yourself in the mundane and repetitive, yet oddly satisfying task of consuming many times your weight before transferring it all off to another ant.
Written by Driftingdragon on 28 December 2019
