An ant becomes immortal. At first this is all wine and roses. Then it remembers that it is an ant. It becomes displeased with its immortality and finally it becomes ant-wroth. Its trail surges up with an awful nimbus of destruction. It begins to crawl slowly across the world.<\/p>\n
It is ruinous.<\/p>\n
It is deadly.<\/p>\n
Where it goes it leaves a line of nothing; in its trail the world is made as not. Long before the sun\u2019s explosion will bring a natural culmination to the planet\u2019s story, the ant\u2019s criss-crossing trail, covering everything, is certain to bring it to an end.<\/p>\n
What a bad ant!<\/p>\n
It crawls across Woodbridge. It crawls across Kesgrave. It leaves a needle-thin track of uttermost devastation behind.<\/p>\n
Men gasp. Women faint. Actually women don\u2019t faint, but they would have, if their corsets had been tighter. A somewhat loopy dog barks, rather a lot.<\/p>\n
The ant crawls into Ipswich.<\/p>\n
It is cold-hearted now. It has become the cruelest ant. It crosses over a dead bird without even pausing to take any of the delicious food of it back to its former mound.<\/p>\n
They wouldn\u2019t recognize it any longer anyway.<\/p>\n
Nobody appreciates the lonely suffering of an immortal ant.<\/p>\n
The ant crawls up a building wall, marginally threatening the building\u2019s ability to meet code.<\/p>\n
It crawls in through Jane and Martin\u2019s kitchen window, leaving a burning trail of non-being behind it.<\/p>\n
Uh oh, ant! The Tao precedes being and non-being.<\/p>\n
The more it is used, the more it produces: the more you speak of it, the less you comprehend. An ant may crawl into through a kitchen window, but Jane squishes it with her finger.<\/p>\n
A good knot needs no rope to tie it, and it can not come undone.<\/p>\n
(Hat tip: the Tao te Ching.)<\/p>\n
Jane looks at the ant paste on her finger. She doesn\u2019t want to lick it off. It\u2019s immortal. But she doesn\u2019t want to waste it, either! So she bakes it into cookies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWaste not, want not!\u201d she advises, to us all.<\/p>\n
She shares the cookies with Martin, and they eat. Then Jane pushes the last few crumbs around on her plate, pretending they are warring gods and demons, and says, \u201cDid you know that five hundred years after you become an immortal, Heaven sends a terrible finger to kill you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hadn\u2019t mentioned,\u201d Martin says. \u201cI mean, not since dinner, you hadn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d Jane says. \u201cAlso, I think it\u2019s somewhat faster for ants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin is licking off one of his fingers. He pauses. \u201cOh, God,\u201d he says. \u201cDid I just eat an immortal bug again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy birthday!\u201d declares Jane.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not my b\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin doesn\u2019t want to lie to Jane unintentionally. He stops mid-sentence. He tries to count the days. He thinks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably not my birthday,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen is?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI dunno,\u201d Martin says. \u201cI was born a long time ago. Then I got tied up by a dwarf! That always plays havoc with your sense of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d Jane says. \u201cThe svart-alfar are extremely punctual.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou <\/i>try keeping time by calendar beast,\u201d Martin says.<\/p>\n
Jane looks eager.<\/p>\n
She is about to open her mouth and ask for a calendar beast! Martin leaps into action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean,\u201d he interrupts, \u201cYou try imagining<\/i> keeping time by a calendar beast.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s easy,\u201d says Jane. \u201cI just tie clocks to its toes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then when it rolls over?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, man!\u201d says Jane. \u201cThe imaginary clocks get all tangled up!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s exactly how it is,\u201d Martin explains. \u201cEventually I got work-released to Ipswich Prison, an intensely realistic simulation of Ipswich built out of my own Cartesian theatre, but by then I\u2019d already completely lost track of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh no!\u201d says Jane. \u201cHow\u2019d you escape?\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin waves a hand vaguely.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I think that I\u2019m in a Cartesian prison,\u201d Jane confesses. \u201cLike, what if I\u2019m only seeing the Ipswich of my own sense-impressions and conceptions out the window?\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin peeks out the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d probably be for the best,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo way!\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen,\u201d says Martin, \u201cthere\u2019s only one answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d have to blow it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBoom!\u201d Martin says. \u201cThe Tao precedes being and non-being. Heaviness is the basis of lightness. Stillness is the standard of activity. The master destroys all of reality, and therefore knows the real.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Hat tip: the Tao te Ching.)<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, man,\u201d says Jane. \u201cOh, MAN!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHm?\u201d<\/p>\n
This has affected her more than he expected. He raises an eyebrow. He watches as she carries the plate off into the kitchen, washes it, dries it, and comes back out.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I\u2019m going to feel guilty forever,\u201d Jane complains, \u201cabout that poor world-destroying ant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An ant becomes immortal. At first this is all wine and roses. Then it remembers that it is an ant. It becomes displeased with its immortality and finally it becomes ant-wroth. Its trail surges up with an awful nimbus of destruction. It begins to crawl slowly across the world. It is ruinous. It is deadly. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-5297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-storm-that-saw-itself-chapter-4","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Jane_and_Jewel2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5297"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6136,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5297\/revisions\/6136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5297"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}