The Oarsman
The Ant That Found God
By Zubin Mathai
THE ANT THAT FOUND GOD
Zubin Mathai
Copyright © 2017 Zubin Mathai
All rights reserved
ISBN: 0-9982155-1-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-9982155-1-8
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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one - Dreams
two - Work
three - Family
four - Death
five - Lost
six - Help
eight - Wonder
nine - Alone
ten - Honor
eleven - Seeing
twelve - Danger
thirteen - Winds
fourteen - Water
fifteen - War
sixteen - Friends
seventeen - Chase
eighteen - Love
nineteen - Surrender
twenty - Home
one
Dreams
The fallen flower caught the light of midday and shimmered with the pink of a perfect dawn, and the ant so wanted to lift it above her like the sun. She twirled her one antenna, then held her breath and blurred her eyes to imagine. In her mind, she had two equally happy antennae, and they touched the flower to feel its textures and smells before giving the go-ahead.
She grabbed the bulb with her two front legs and grimaced and groaned — in her mind’s eye she was quite dramatic — and then hoisted it over her head. She spun around to do her dance and even added a few happy hops to show that this flower was no match for her strength. A wave of applause raced along the ground, up her legs, and then vibrated into her body as joy. Turning around, she saw the rest of the workers, and some warriors, all hollering and cheering at her incredible show of power.
It was a good day to be an ant.
Snapping out of her reverie, the ant’s eyes refocused, and the flower was exactly as it was before; it still caught the light with petals like pink flames, and the ant was still captivated. She stared at the dancing colors and no longer needed to daydream lifting them up to feel their perfection.
Just then a wind blew through, exciting some unclaimed dust beside her to swirl it away into the air. A few seconds after the wind died down the ant sensed something approaching. She felt it not in her antenna, legs, or body, but someplace else, a place her brain couldn’t pinpoint. The wind returned, this time laying claim to the flower, shaking and rolling it enough that the ant had to jump back to avoid being crushed.
On its third approach, the wind became perfectly accurate and ripped a petal from the flower. It twirled the petal around the ant for a few seconds before shooting it up into the blueness of the sky. The petal danced on the wind, as if tempting the ant to follow along, and so she did, mirroring the movements with her tiny feet. She jumped and dipped, raced forward and back, and giggled with little squeaks in between each of her laughs.
Ants don’t have ears, and so it was quite strange when the ant thought she heard something. Again, it was not the ordinary vibrations through her antenna, legs, or body — but something directly dropped into her mind, like dew fallen from a leaf. As the wind carried the petal higher and higher, and then began moving it towards a sparse line of trees, the ant swore she heard a delicate whisper: Come follow me. Come find where I live.
two
Work