The Failure of 4787

By Ryan Helcoski

In the chill of the pre-dawn air, the kingdom slept. Sisters huddled close and dreaming, unaware of the coming beast. In the darkness they were sheltered, unworried, ignorant. Until at last, dawn broke. And with it, the tranquility of night gave way to the cacophony of day. Lorikeets squawked and flies buzzed and crickets chirped. Sunbeams crept across the land, warming the earth, stirring the kingdom, and waking the sisters.

And in rising, the sisters stretched, and clicked, and prayed for blessings. And 4787 slept on among them. Groggy but cheerful, the sisters cleaned themselves. Then, they greeted one another and went about their tasks. Some to care for the young, others to tend the queen, and still others to wake the workers, like 4787.

4787 (for she was the 4,787^th born) was, like her sisters, a member of the species Iridomyrmex purpureus, or “meat ant,” but she liked to think of herself as Amelia. It was a nice name, and she felt it suited her. Besides, most of her sisters eventually dropped their birth number and chose their own names anyway.

So, on Amelia slept, and in the end, it was Nikki who woke her. And upon Amelia’s awakening, the two embraced, and Nikki departed, unaware this day would be her last. Then, sleep forgotten, Amelia hurried to clean herself and follow the flood of sisters out of the kingdom and into the rising sun.

There, in the mid-morning warmth, Amelia greeted Mitsoo and Jayden and Beatrice, and Michelle and Alex and Jordan, and Lin and Ava and Fe. She stretched her abdomen and inhaled fresh air. The sun warmed her hemolymph and her sisters warmed her heart. How she wished now that she had better appreciated those moments. But she could not have known. None of them could have.

And so, still unsuspecting, Amelia and her sisters turned and raced along the kingdom’s main byway toward an old Eucalyptus globulus named Tidda. Her trip, however, was cut short when moments later, she bumped into a sister. There, up ahead at Tidda’s base, a neighboring kingdom’s fighters had engaged her sisters in a ritualized combat display.

They raised their abdomens and danced, kicking with their front legs. Amelia’s sisters responded in kind, pushing the not-sisters back.

Granted, there would be no casualties. This was a peaceful show of force, and Amelia was simply caught in the midst of it. But it was then, squaring up with a not-sister, kicking and bobbing and dancing, that Amelia sensed it—really sensed it. Death.

She froze. In unison, her sisters ceased fighting and turned homeward. In confusion, the not-sisters stumbled, until they too turned. The scent was everywhere, it filled their spiracles and burned their antennae. It was acid, panic, pain, suffering, death. Death. Death! It was the scent of her sisters dying!

All at once, Amelia, her sisters, and even her not-sisters, raced to the kingdom. As a swarm, a stampede, a living wave, they ran. Onward. Onward! Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. There should not be this much death, not this close to home.

Amelia’s thoughts swam. The smell of death intensified as she neared the kingdom. There, she knew, her sisters were perishing in droves, screaming out in pain and fury. And onward she raced. She would save them, she knew, her sisters. She would save them. She would save them all! No matter the cost, none too great for the good of the kingdom!

Upon six legs, she ran into the heart of the storm, the maw of danger. Where unknown demons stomped and sisters fell. But still, she could not identify the attacker. Mandibles splayed, antennae alert, Amelia sprinted. And there, just ahead, she smelled the monster, the world-ender, Tachyglossus aculeatus, a spiny anteater. There, she felt it tear into her colony, her home. It was a beast of boiling blood and heated breath, a monster of unimaginable size. But no matter, no matter!

She would kill it; she would save them!

She would save her sisters!

As Amelia ran, she felt the beast dig deeper. It was, she knew, searching for something. Delicate eggs, brood chambers? No… it couldn’t be. The creature, she realized, was right over the royal antechamber. It was searching for the queen! Her queen! No!

Rage intensified, Amelia raised her mandibles and sped on, and upon the beast the living wave crashed, covering its hairy hide. The monster huffed and sputtered. With one claw the quadruped stamped out the lives of Sophia, Jenny, Charlotte, and Olivia, sisters and not-sisters alike.

But onward came Amelia, onward came the flood. They stormed up the creature’s stinking bulbous limb with Amelia at the forefront. There, she found an area of flesh that was soft as a newborn. There, she opened her mandibles wide, wider, and bit. The creature jerked and snorted. It flexed, trying to squash Amelia, instead crushing sisters. And Amelia heard them, felt them die. But she held firm. She would not let this beast murder anyone else, she would not let it continue its unwarranted attack, she would defend her kingdom, her queen, her sisters!

Her home!

Harder, Amelia bit. Her mandibles a steel vice, her rage an unending pit. And on the world-ender dug, cracking chambers, squashing sisters, crunching larvae, until it breached the royal antechamber. There, it bore down its toothed maw upon the queen. And Amelia felt it, and heard it, and smelled it.

The death of her queen.

And the air was thick with grief and loss. And the monster chewed and Amelia released it. She tumbled to the earth, surrounded by destruction. And the beast departed, and the kingdom crumbled, and the sisters ran in circles, all hope lost. The future an impossibility, the past a memory. And Amelia stood and Amelia wept. For she knew then, in the depth of her being, that she failed. She had failed them all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ryan Helcoski is a human who studies nonhuman things and their ecological impacts. He is endlessly fascinated by the natural world and everything in it.

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