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Yeah I'm also in with no inspiration or starting point. I got fired this week and my brain needs a good kick in the nuts to get focused again
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Jan 20, 2024 04:56
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 09:27 |
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PILF 776 words “Ant colonies with multiple fertile queens can on occasion grow to enormous size, resulting in a vast nexus of social units that breed and grow on their own but remain connected…one supercolony of Formica Yessensis, located on the Ishikari Coast near Hokkaido, Japan and discovered in 1979 by Seigo Higashi and Katsusuke Yamauchi, contains an estimated 306 million workers and one million queens, living in over 45,000 interconnected nests…” - Hölldobler and Wilson, “Observed Patterns in Social Homeostasis. Among Genus Formica”, 1993 Ixl hurried down the cramped tunnel, guided by the frail spectre of musk that still peppered the sandy floor. It had been over an hour since her last encounter with anyone on this little-used route, a file of bedraggled harvesters that had bustled past her in some distress: HOME WRONG HOME HOME WRONG Whatever that meant. This was not uncommon; workers who strayed from the central hub of burrows for too long devolved quickly into more abbreviated communications, their glands automatically abandoning production of all but the most economical pheromones. The results often bordered on nonsensical. HOME WRONG WRONG WRONG It was nonetheless disquieting, and Ixl quickened her pace, her antennae busily mappeing the path ahead. She was well past familiar ground out here. CckLyckLk, the subcolony to which she’d been dispatched, was positioned dangerously close to a stretch of soggy meadow that had aggressively quashed all attempts at expansion. Though the soil here was rich and soaked with nutrients, there were far too many predators, both spiders and wasps posing a menace so formidable that the entire region had been exempted from any plans for the upcoming migration. Ixl half-expected CckLyckLk to be overrun or abandoned, but as she rounded a shallow bend the tunnel widened, and she sensed the familiar branching of arteries to her left and right. The trails of scent were strong and clean here: storage sub-chambers to the left, hatcheries down and to the right. She was comforted to sense movement as well, the somnolent thrumming of activity above and below, less audible than tactile, registered by the fine hairs that speckled her abdomen. Over a shallow rise she entered the main chamber, and here at last was company. The last reliable estimate of CckLyckLk’s population placed the worker count at around 3,000, but since then communications had dwindled before stopping altogether, prompting Ixl’s dispatch. Based on the activity Ixl saw in the main chamber, it seemed clear that the colony had shrunk significantly, perhaps by as much as half. Those workers she saw, though, seemed in good health, large and well-fend. The dusky red bristles lining their ridged legs that identified all Hokkaido colony members were thick and mottled, a sign both of consistent nutrition and general social harmony. A colony worker separated from the flow of languid motion to approach her. Ixl flexed her pincers and inclined her head, allowing the worker’s antennae to tap hers with a respectful curiosity. MUCH WELCOME! COME FROM NORTH, FROM NORTH. COME NEST, FOOD FOOD WORK, FOOD It was a relief after the somewhat harrowing journey, a far more nuanced exchange than the babble of the workers on the trail. Ixl was famished. She allowed her host to escort her through the throng of colonists to a larder off the main trail, stuffed with an array of fungus and nectars. Ixl gorged herself s her host did likewise. She noticed that he, too, seemed larger than normal, the product of steady eating and comfortable living. WHERE FOOD TAKE? She tapped, curious as to how the small colony had managed to procure such a bounty. A larder this rich was had enough to maintain without the constant shadow of attack; Ixl wanted to know how they managed it. FOOD TAKE GROUND NEST, WHERE? FOOD COMES, the worker answered agreeably enough. COLONY OUTSIDE BRING ALL FOOD INSIDE, ALL EAT. WHERE QUEEN? Ixl asked uneasily. NO QUEEN. SKY MOTHER. COME! Her host guided her to a smooth and wide tunnel that descended to what Ixl assumed ws the queen’s chamber. There was no queen. The wasp that lay in her place was massive, swollen with gluttony. It hung suspended by slender threads of gossamer silk over the chamber. The huge stinger pulsed dreamily, exuding drops of clear venom the size of Ixl’s head. NEW MOTHER NEW GOOD MOTHER proclaimed the worked proudly. SAFE WARM NEW MOTHER GOOD NOT QUEEN, protested Ixl, and bared her pincers reflexively. It was a huge mistake. Triggered by the instinctual display of aggression, the watching soldiers emerged from alcoves, their long wings arched high, their wasp bodies bristliing with dusky red hairs. NEW MOTHER GOOD, proclaimed the worker cheerfully.
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Jan 22, 2024 05:59
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Family (Prompt 3: Six sentences, 294 words) The three ships arrived at the same time, each of them miles long, wormlike and writhing, and while all three could be seen on YouTube, San Diego’s was easily the most spectacular, with its dusky Pacific clouds pulled to ashen taffy before stiffening into crooked triangular shards miles long end to end, all stabbing inwards towards a central point, then sagging back into themselves as the visitors unspooled themselves into our world. As a species we were generally batshit with fear at first, of course, but that grew boring with time and was soon replaced by a petulant anger at the way they batted away our planes and shrugged at our bombs, which would in turn give way to an odd resentment, or even envy, for their silent and monolithic indifference to us. When it became more clear that they were helping us, things got much more complicated; some shrank further into suspicion and distrust, while others fell to worship them as gods. So they saved our oceans, and purged the skies of all our poisons, and nursed our ailing forests, and coaxed our home's aching soil to fresh life, and so it was hardly strange that many of us came to love them as silent guardians to us all, strange step-parents charged with our well-being. Twice in one year the night skies flickered and pulsed with ghosts of white flame as they fended off intruders far beyond the atmosphere, guarding our precious world from harm. And even at the end, when the first newborn tendrils burst from the ground like colossal roots, splintering the oceans and cracking the earth like a walnut as the newborn wriggled free, even then we could not hate them for protecting their children, as any good parent should.
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Feb 5, 2024 08:58
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