20100507

Night of the Flying Ants

If it sounds like the title of a horror movie, it kind of was. Last
night, just after dark, we were bombarded by thousands of flying ants.
I sat down to write a short email and had to stop when I couldn't read
the screen anymore because the ants had almost completely covered up the
screen with their winged bodies. I blew them off, closed the computer,
and went outside to sit in the dark to avoid the continual harassment of
six legged fiends flying toward lights. We have a kerosene lamp that
usually gets lit in the common room, and we all turned to look at it
when we thought it was running out of fuel since the light got dimmer.
Drastic measures were to be taken as the tiny insects were engulfing the
lamp.

So, we decided to go to war. We set up a candle on the floor of the
room. As the victims flew too close to the flame, their little wings
got clipped. Having lost the ability to transcend quickly toward the
light, they resorted to climbing the candle where their doom awaited
them at the top in the form of fiery vengeance.

Our elation was quickly subdued, however, when the continual stream of
their forces began to overwhelm our meager candle. Soon their bodies
were stacking up around the flame, choking it out in a suffocating wall
of bodies. Within ten minutes (we hadn't even finished our suppers) our
source of light, and our weapon, was extinguished! There was only one
thing to be done: clean off the candle and re-light it... over, and
over, and over again... I personally lost count after half a dozen
times when we resorted to much more extreme measures to eradicate our
enemy: aerosol can.

Their forces never saw it coming. They died by the hundreds. With each
blast their force was left scattered on the sago bark floor. We won the
battle, but they won the war. After ten minutes of intermittent battle,
and a can of ammo, we retreated to our portable DVD player under the
security guard of a mosquito net over the three of us and the brightly
light screen. Our candle soon extinguished, we were left in relative
peace under the net and an uneasy truce was kept for the remainder of
the night.

Bards will write of the saga of the Night of the Flying Ants for
weeks... At least we tried during supper.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha :D See, nature in America and Europe is nice and friendly...!!
Take care! Anina

AK in Indo said...

Wow! Poor bugs, they were just going to the light... Glad you had a net though!