By The Pond – Jialu
Only about a year ago, I still acted like a child during one of the outings with my parents. It was because of the ants.
Having a meal on the bench by the pond in Houtan Park, very tiny bits of food—bread, fish, candy and others—of no importance for mankind, composed of a grand feast for the ants. One tiny piece of red chilli started moving beside my feet when I noticed them. There was only one small dark black ant, the most common type I could see in cities from my experiences. I remembered there are at least 3 sizes of them—small, medium and large. Those ones I saw back then were definitely of a size “s”. The lonely, desperate one, was dragging the “dinner” but seemed effortless to do so. I suppose every ant is a Hercules. Then I noticed there were two groups of worker ants assembling up by my father’s feet. The small piece of a sweet snack and fish had already attracted about twenty of them. They surrounded the food, but it didn’t seem that they were going to carry the trophies home. I guessed it was the size being too big. There could be two reasons: one, they needed to cut the bigger food into pieces before they carried it home; or they were eating it first and then would feed the other ants later. 
The Ants
Wow! There was one single small ant carrying a small chunk away! It crawled so fast! It climbed up the beach and rushing towards the right, where many ants were coming from. They all seemed so excited. Every time that ant encountered another one, they would touch each other’s antennas to communicate. Now there was a gap, but it didn’t stop. It stretched one of its back legs and there it crossed the gap.
Then it occurred to me that the ant-observing “habit” had been a tradition for me. During the course of our growth, many things are lost, like innocence, curiosity. I often mourn for that loss, spent hours sitting there doing nothing but endeavouring to recollect a feeling that has been long forgotten. I’ve been trying to retrieve them, the childhood happiness. Then, thankfully some good qualities have been preserved through instinct. This ant-observing was one of them.
That ant was still crawling, working hard for its whole colony of ant.
☟ Usually the visual is not of a good quality, so just listen to the music. Haha. 🙂 ☟
