The Cricket and the Ant

Zephyrs of summer wind teased the verdant landscape into recitals of grass ballet. Heady blossom scents collided with evaporating earth musk, joining essences in wild bouquets of redolence. Cicada concerti reeded their seven-year inspirations to a score composed in darkness. Frustrated with their irritating dissonance, the cricket raised his own distinctive chirr.

Sleek, ebony-glossed luminary of summer's grassy stage, Zhivet ardently practiced his acoustic craft. Favored with sensitivity suited to a master, his genius was attuned just as keenly to cool, dew-spotted mornings as to sweltering nights. He kept his instruments and his talent in peak condition.

One evening Zhivet decided his cricket concert would be better appreciated over the cacophony of the frantic cicada whirring if he could get up a little higher. A tall grass stalk with fresh shoots of soft blades made a comfortable perch. As the cricket warmed up, he looked earthward. There below he saw a most peculiar thing. A fly, flat on its back, one wing missing -- and by all appearances, dead -- was nonetheless grunting and moving herky-jerky through the grass!

“Salute, poor sir!” Zhivet hailed.

The fly continued to grunt and swerve. Zhivet, being a gentleman, was slightly affronted. He tried again, however.

“Good fly! It appears you are in need of assistance! Could you tell me your dilemma and I will trill out a distress call for you!”

A somewhat muffled answer came back: “I aint a fly. Don't need no help. Don't bother callin' no one.”

Astonishing! And the talking fly did not even move his mouth parts! Zhivet had to get closer to this curiosity. Careful not to damage his delicate instruments, the cricket sprang down to ground level to get a better look.

Threading his way closer to the topsy-turvy fly, Zhivet could finally see it was not moving under its own power. It was, instead, girdled by two rather fierce-looking red claspers that were attached to the front portion of a grunting, straining ant.

“Master ant! Be very careful there! And whatever are you doing with a fly on your back?” he queried.

Ant-fly trudged on. “I say,” Zhivet persisted, “couldn't you stop a moment to rest and chat?”

The ant heaved his burden to the ground, groaned and scrubbed his antennae. He turned to face his addresser. “Can’t rest long. Gotta store up for winter. This here fly’ll feed the kids when it's cold out. So I gotta just go carry on.”

Carrion! thought Zhivet with a shiver. His delicate sensibilities were disturbed. But, he was a cordial Orthopteran, so he shook off his distaste.

“I can discern that you are weary, sir ant. There’s a lovely spot of dew on this grass blade; let me pull it down for you. And tell me your name, dear sir.”

After the ant gratefully refreshed himself, he introduced himself.

“I’m Ant Twenty-Six-Oh-Ninety-Three-QKB; pleased to meet you, Zhivet.” Noticing the cricket’s confusion, he continued. “I was the 26,093rd larvae in the B season of our glorious Queen Kamiformi; bless her abdomen.” If an ant’s carapace could have, his would have glowed with pride.

Too gracious to reveal his confusion, the cricket nonetheless bravely attempted, “Ah, and what may I call you less formally, um, Twenty-Six, uh, Ninety, uh...”

The ant quickly saved face. “All my friends call me Hauler, on account of the goods I round up for the colony. You can, too, Zhivet.”

The cricket nodded to his new comrade and asked, “Stay a while, Hauler? It’s a beautiful day. Let’s sing and dance a while.”

“Can’t stay any longer, friend; too much work to do. There’s a passel of hungry mouths back at the mound. A cold winter’ll be right around the corner, y’know.”

As the ant trundled his spiritless fly burden onto his back, the cricket felt he had to dispel Hauler’s gloomy prediction. Fiddling away, he sang to his departing friend:

     Beauty of days so enchanting

     Summer’s sweetness full of fancies

     Rather than struggle with all that panting

     Hauler should join in Summer's dances!

By now the ant-with-fly was so far away, Zhivet barely heard him muttering, “You’ll see. Come winter, you’ll see.”

The dreadful noise of the cicadas was lessening every day as they wound up their indelicate mating rituals. The cricket felt more of the meadow’s population could appreciate his gift now that their rasping was less intrusive. He was increasing in talent daily, moved by passions from sunshine and moonlight, flora and loam, scents and sweet tastes of summer.

Cooler days did nothing to slow Zhivet’s hymns to life. Perched on a fallen scarlet leaf (which showed off his jet-black back beautifully), he played his heart out for whom he assumed were his hundreds of fans. Pausing, he could hear one coming now.

With delight, Zhivet saw that it was Hauler, although it was hard to recognize him because he was all but hidden under a large piece of something that smelled rather unpleasant.

“Hello, friend!” the cricket sallied. “I am charmed to see you again. Do stop and enjoy a little rest and music. Here, put down that, uh, encumbrance and spend the remainder of this short evening with me!”

Hauler recognized Zhivet. He decided he could stop for a second to say hey. He was not, however, going to unclasp his graspers from his load.

“Hey, Zhivet. Thorry, caint sthay. Gotta sthore up for winter. You better, too. Bye now. Gotta get thith bit of beetle guths back to the nesth.”

Ooof! Guts! Zhivet almost lost his composure, but still managed to be polite, “Good luck! Keep up the good work!” And thinking to himself, Me? Carry guts? Store up? Nevertheless, he sang to the departing ant:

     An ant’s big hurry makes him scurry

     But Fall is a ball so I don't worry

     I play so well, but I'm never harried

     Hauler can’t sing, but he sure can carry.

The long, crisp nights that followed merited Zhivet’s best work ever. He played and sang to silvery moonlight, for bursting seed pods, about migrating birds. He sometimes chirred as soft as the squirrel’s fluffier coat, sometimes staccatoed his beats to match the red-head’s hungry tapping. Colder conditions could not suppress the artist in him.

Or so he thought.

Cold. It was so cold and dark. Zhivet could hardly move. His wings were rimed, his jumping legs locked. He tried to burrow into unforgiving soil, tried to find a bit of protection in the roots, but he was so stiff from cold. If he could find something to eat, he might gain some strength. There was nothing. It was empty, bleak.

Zhivet could not move now. His beautiful song sounded only in his mind. Even that was little comfort, for he could hear this nagging voice interrupting, You’ll see. Come winter, you’ll see.

A weak sunrise brought him back to consciousness. He was still immobile, but he could hear footsteps approaching him. Though numbed and nearly senseless, Zhivet could see that it was an enormous, ugly red ant coming towards him. Barely pausing, the other insect picked Zhivet up in his mighty jaws and slung him on his back.

Panic! Paralyzed, paralyzing panic! Zhivet's mind was racing but his legs could not. Beetle guts! Dead fly! I'm going to wind up as breakfast for junior ants! Oh, all that time singing and playing and all I've ever been destined for is carrion!

If that cricket could move, he would have torn his own beautiful wings off in despair.

The ant hauled Zhivet quite a distance to a place he hadn’t seen before. Now there were more ants, dozens, hundreds, the sight of which froze him even more stiffly than the cold. The ants appeared purposeful, determined; they were digging in the ground working together as one. They were working on a hole, making it, making it, NO! cricket sized!

As he was flung roughly to the earth, a terror he could never have imagined blasted through him. It produced a heat, an intensity, a fear fervor that radiated from his antennae to the tips of his jumpers, causing his whole body to vibrate. His wings lifted, lifted, quaked, shivered . . . and played!

Every single member of that Formicidae mass stopped dead in their ant tracks, listening to Zhivet’s Requiem. He played from the sorrow in his heart, he played for pity from the ants, he played to the folly of his ways. If he were not too scared to speak, he would have sung, “What a fool I am!”

Terror gave way to resignation, to complete despair. Just as he fell silent, he heard someone say, “Zhivet? Is that you?” And one ant pushing his way forward said, “Hey, guys, this here’s the one I was telling you about. The one that sung them songs about me?”

Hauler? Could it be? Would my death, Zhivet thought, be mercifully less painful because my friend is here?

He was about to find out, for Hauler moved his way through the crowd to Zhivet's side. He antennaed him lightly before turning to face his kind.

“You know,” he said carefully, “we had a good year. We got all the food in for winter. We have a great, big home with lots o’ room. We got us a healthy queen and bunches of kids. What we aint got is any entertainment for them kids for the whole durned winter.”

Soft ant susurrations rippled through the crowd:

“That's right.”

“We know!”

“What about it?”

“And?”

“Well, I'm a-thinkin’,” continued Hauler, “that maybe this here cricket’s fiddlin’ might be just the thing we need to keep them kids quiet while they’re cooped up all winter.”

Zhivet caught his breath as mandibles squared off and the ants started discussing this among themselves. His hope rose and fell which each whispered phrase he managed to catch:

“Never heard of such a thing.”

“He shore does play good.”

“In our colony?”

“It might work.”

“Wonder how much he eats.”

“Wonder how many mouths he’d feed?”

“Well, one way to decide.”

Soon Zhivet could distinctly hear, “Vote!”

“Let’s take a vote.”

“Let’s all vote!”

Then, as if that whole mass of insects were only one huge ant, everyone fell silent. And the next thing heard was Zhivet laughing, laughing and shaking with mirth, half because he knew he was reprieved and half because of an ant’s funny way of voting.

Every single blessed red abdomen was stuck up high in the air.

Zhivet had his own cozy room that winter. He had plenty of roots and seeds in his underground haven. He composed 12,439 songs, as well — one for each child born that winter. It is said that he even played for royalty.