/dev/null

The Ides of March Strikes the Goo. (ok.. so more like the Nones)


Yes indeed dear Ant lover. During this time of burglary, pain and violation. (No, it’s not a club night) even the goo has been effected by the accursed month of March. Somewhere around the 70th day in the coloney, I decided that since boys had pretty well settled into the Bunker, and things were pretty much going as well as they were going to get. It was time to stir things up a bit. As we all know from picnic tables everywhere, idle ants do the devils work. My solution to this was a sort of cross between creating a Guantanamo Bay like atmosphere for our underground legion of industries workers. Sleep dep. That’s right. I turned the blue glowing LED base on, and yes.. I LEFT IT ON. The Colony is now going into it’s second week in constant LIGHT. My hope was that the massive amount of radiation would create mutant super ants that would be so grateful for their new powers that they would use them to fight crime! This seemed to spark a great deal of action from the colony. For days they ran about with new vigor and energy. Scampering through the tunnels with new passion and meaning! Possibly trying desperately to find the light switch that someone had left on….
Since sadism runs through the blood of Germans everywhere, I decided that this was NOT ENOUGH. Nay, merely depriving helpless would be world conquering insects of sleep and irradiating them with the blue LED lamps of DOOM was not nearly enough entertainment, no, the enclosure needed a new facing. You see, the enclosure sits on a semi enclosed shelf in my office, and has a convex and concave side. You see the convex side of the enclosure faced “outward” toward the desk and toward the natural light of my window. This has always been the side that Q-Tip has encouraged the other ants to dig on, perhaps reaching out for that freedom that he once tasted… So, in an effort to disrupt his political and, by now, religious hold on the ant colony, I reversed the facing of the enclosure! Literally turning there little word around!! NIGHT HAD BECOME DAY (or blue anyway) and everything had gone topsy turvy!!! What would they due??!!

Civil War.

Indeed, mere days after these changes happened I noticed that things had once again quieted down in the bunker, and strangely the Legion was no longer living on the bottom of the enclosure in the large rooms they had dug. They now spend most of the time on the tops of the slag piles. Living and digging in the new tunnels at the top of the enclosure! At the bottom, in the large empty rooms, lay half the colony. “Sleeping”, I thought “They must be tired from all that light switch searching!” but after a couple of days, without movement, I began to wonder, “Do ants sleep all curled up like that?” So, at the end of the second day, I decided to find out for sure. I knew, after a great civil upheaval, I would not be welcome in the new society that the ants were building, so I did the only thing left to me. I “stimulated the enclosure gently with a rocking motion” this seemed to stir up some movement! Oh yes! All but the “sleeping” ants ran around ducking for cover!

Strangely, the Ant graveyard, is at the bottom of the Bunker. None of the ants save one, Q-Tip seem to be willing to visit the dead, and there is almost always a sentry posted. It seems that perhaps Q-Tip is sending a message to the other ants should they try to rise up against his benevolent dictatorship again. “This Brothers, is the cost” … or maybe he was just really good friends with one of them and wants a little privacy, could be either or really.

Needless to say, I feel as if I must act. Soon, I will be introducing the ants to their version of the monolith once again. The object that started them down the path that they, today find themselves upon. I intend, to place, vertically in the Goo, a Q-Tip!!!!


This is Pax Industria, reporting live from deep with the Goo, where tensions still run high and anything, ANYTHING could happen.

-Pax

This transmission may be interrupted. Things are….. they control the whole area now… I still don’t know what their intentions are. He watches me. I think he knows I’m here, the rest of them.. either don’t believe him, or don’t care. Onward they dig. Things have changed in the goo friends, oh yes, things have changed. The Glow radiates an eerie aura in the mornings. Tunnels fill the Goo, arranged as if some mad genius were to create a fortress in which no inhabitant without the shared thoughts of his brothers would ever be able to find their way out. The entire “above” ground section of the enclosure has been filled with small rocky chunks of goo, the excavated portion of the tunnels. Tunnels tightening, then spreading into an expansive cavern. Cavern that exist one day, are filled with debris from another area, only to be excavated again the next. For what purpose could this serve. In my more lucid hours, I wonder if it’s the stockpile of food. I knew they would eat the goo, but what if they knew they would need a secure food store?? Could they have the foresight to stockpile it in roving depots?? No sane mind could track the ever changing lair of the ants. It’s as if the Bunker itself is a creature which grows and shifts, all the while the ants act as it’s agents on the physical plane… could this be a smaller and more subtle attempt by the elder gods… nay, nay,… I’ll not think of that…. That route lays madness.

All the while, he watches. From atop one of the tallest peaks of the light sky blue mountains of rubble, one of the ones nearest the top of the enclosure, he sits. Q-tip watches the watchers. It’s as if his time on the outside has changed him somehow, or perhaps that brief time away from the collective made him long for the outside of the enclosure. I don’t know. But I do know, he sits sentry like on the surface while all of the other ants go about their patrols and duties.

Earlier I wondered if the colony knew what is was doing. And now while it seems they have no grand design, there in fact a fascinating logic to their actions. Smaller cogs in the grand machine all working together. I have no idea what the grander goal is, but the bunker itself has a fascinating beauty. It is easy to get lost in it’s rambling corridors and caverns, and the landscape above is like a beautiful holocaust of construction. The mine tailing of natural machines. Even more fascinating is that they’ve begun digging new tunnels through the tailing. Building in and through their own discarded materials. The ultimate wasters, in their own way become the ultimate recyclers. I find myself wondering what part I’ll play in the continued maintance of the bunker. What part will the lonely Q-Tip play?

This is Pax Industria, thoughtfull and in the goo.

Deep within the goo; they live.

The past week has brought many revelations. Ants dig eat and sometimes patrol the goo. They are more a legion then a commune and man times as I gaze into the goo do I wonder: “for whom does the Ant dig? Does he dig for me?”

Shortly after my last report, I came to call the heroic freedom loving ant by his ant name, which translates into “He-who-grasps-onto-Q-Tip”. This name, in ant, is as elegant as it is beautiful, but since It translates into nearly shrieking madness when said three times fast, I’ve taken to calling him, simply “Q-Tip” Day after day, Q-Tip after his brief touch with freedom has been galvanizing the other ants to dig deep into the goo for freedom. By Friday of last week they had started three tunnels, none of which reached any deeper then the initial starter tunnel that they had widened into a cavern. They dug two mines, one on either side of the enclosure or “Ant containment unit” Every day Q-tip would get a couple of ants working with him, he and another ant that seems smitten with his cause acted as digger and the other fellow or two would clear out the tunnels. Most of the colony however would stay and chat amounts themselves on the parade ground. Finally on Friday there seemed to be an actual group effort. A large number of ants had finally walked across the line and dug. And wow did they dig. In just a few short hours they dug a line straight down, then upon reaching the depth of the main cavern, they took an abrupt left turn and headed directly for the main cavern. I can tell you ladies and gents, that excitement was in the air. At last, construction on the main complex was starting to come together. At last, we would begin to see what sort of plans these strange legionaries might have! Closer and closer the shaft came to the main hall, when suddenly they lost their way and when within a centimeter of connecting to the main hall, they veered upwards, like a swimmer gasping for air, the ants surfaced! One can only image the scene as Q-Tip and his stalwart friend surfaced only to realize that mere millimeters away was the entrance to another tunnel they themselves had dug only the day before. Q-tip turning directly to his companion and uttering the line that Bugs made so famous, but actually stole from his confused ground digging neighbors the ants, “I think I should have taken a left turn at Albuquerque” It was at this point that I began wondering if these ground dwelling denizens of the goo had any idea what the fuck they were doing at all.
This morning however, I was surprised by the complexity and breadth of their tunnel system. They have either A) Dug so much that they have inadvertently created a bunker of some tactical use, thus making themselves look smarter in me, the eyes of their blue goo god. Much like the 10,000 monkeys producing Hamlet. Or B) they had a plan all along and I just wasn’t able to see the bunker through the trees. Which happens, sometimes bunkers are tricky that way.
One final note; perhaps the bunker itself wasn’t Q-tips goal at all. I have noticed as the morning progresses that they are building ramps which bring them dangerously close to the lip of the containment unit. What if instead of creating a command bunker (Henceforth know as “Das Bunker”) but are instead making an escape ramp with the displaced earth. (Henceforth known as “Das Ramp”) What if it’s all a nefarious play to over throw the blue goo god?!! Only time will tell.

This is Pax Industria, Reporting from the edge of the bunker. Nerves are tight but victory is assured.

In the goo.

My happy little colony of Ants has arrived. Yesterday I was pretty sure that most of them had fallen as casualties of war verses the United States Postal service, I however didn’t reckon on the mighty ants will to survive! Sadly a couple of them went to the giant glowing blue ant farm in the sky. (a moment of silence if you would)

Once they were released into their home, the tiny glowing blue ant farm in my office, the first thing they did once they shook the travel off, was to scurry about and each and every ant found a droplet of condensation on the inside of the tank, and drank deep. Travel is a thirsty business! Then they all had a town hall meeting. Every little ant ran over to the right hand side of the tank, stood in a little square and chatted for a while. After that, they broke their huddle and, as best I can tell, “scoped out” the lay of the land. Systematically checking for security loopholes in the glowy-ness. While most of them did this, a couple moved their dearly departed clan mates, OVER the pre existing “starter” holes that I had made for them. I feel like this was a sign of defiance to any other ants that may or may not have been in the holes already, and not part of our group of stalwart survivors! This message clearly states, “We show our distain for you by placing corpses on your front door BITHCES!” either that or they were moving the debris to the low areas so they could work. I really prefer the former though. About this point I kissed them good night, tucked them in and went home.

This morning I was shocked and amazed to see they had finished exploring their new home, and dug a two in central shave with two entrances (using one of the starter tunnels I had left for them, the deepest of them) and after finishing, they had left a single sentry sleeping in the cavern, and the rest of the team had taken to sleeping in the same area that they had had the first team meeting on the island! They had also moved most of the bodies to the OTHER end of the tank from them! “Well”, thought I, “the least I can do is get rid of the bodies for them” Well, opening the tank work up the team, at first they were a bit slow, and none of them had a chance to get coffee before being on high alert. (I was after all scooping up ant corpses with a Q-tip) it was at this point the escape attempt happened.

One brave, brave ant, seeing the corpse of his dearly departed friend being lifted by a huge Q-tip of doom, cried out “Freedom!!!” and leapt about the Q-Tip!! I then screamed like a girl at the prospect of being bitten by a insect smaller then a piece of trident bubble gum, and (wait for it) … dropped the Q-tip. Realizing that having one rough ant on the loose could be trouble, I scooped up the Q-Tip, taunted the ant back onto it, and was able to get him back into the tank without further ado! I fear he is sowing the seeds of discontent with his wild tales of adventure. The side of the tank that was once used as a graveyard has seen a flurry of ant tunneling activity. They have put the main shaft on hold, and are furiously digging in the corner where the two pieces of Plexiglas meet. Every now and again, I see a sentry patrol the original tunnel structure, but most of the team is concentrating on the new tunnel project.


This is Pax Industria, reporting from the front. Things are tense, but confidence is high. I repeat, confidence is high.