The Ant and The Grasshopper: What Happened Later

Extended from Jacob's translation, 1894 (only because he didn't kill the Grasshopper, or there wouldn't be much of a What Happened Later ; D)

The Ant and the Grasshopper

In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?"

"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."

"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; "we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew:

It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.

What Happened Later...

As the winter thickened, the Grasshopper grew weak and weary, frail and thin, light as a blade of grass, for it had no stash of food to subsist on. One freezing day, it grew so weak it could not even get up. The Ant, ever the resourceful one it was, brought the Grasshopper back inside its underground abode, for the Grasshopper had conveniently collapsed in front of the anthill1, and the Ant mistook it for a carcass, so fresh and juicy it was an unpardonable waste to leave lying around outside, so close to its home the carcass was; and the Ant cached the Grasshopper among its many stores.

1 (The Grasshopper went there earlier that day in the hopes that an ant would come out, notice the Grasshopper, take pity on the Grasshopper and feed the Grasshopper)

The cozy warmth of the depths of the anthill brought color back into the cheeks of the Grasshopper. So deep below the topsoil, barely enough light filtered through to illuminate the tunnels. But lo and behold, where the Grasshopper woke up, it was at the foot of a mountain of puffy, hard whitish things that smelt strongly of... food. Starving and in its half-awake state, the Grasshopper dreamily helped itself to the oh, so glorious food that the ants had toiled the entire summer to save up. Corn, it was. Its physical needs less immediate, the Grasshopper started to notice its surroundings. The whitish things looked like the things he usually saw in the sky, and everything else was darkness. To the Grasshopper, the omega-6 fatty acids in the corn was food for thought, and the Grasshopper thought it was Heaven, and that he was on one of the clouds in heaven; but then he detected a silver of gold on the cloud. So clouds are golden on top and silver below and tasted like corn! Then he realized that the place smelt strongly of the Earth. In horror, he blurted out, "Had the sky come crashing down to Earth already? I thought that Chicken Licken was lying!" But then, he assembled together and looked at the big picture and realized that he was probably underground on Earth. after all, he had gone to the anthill is hopes of receiving food. If that is so, underground Earth is better than Heaven, for it was familiar and unassuming; the Grasshopper could see how the golden piles of corn were stored in a chamber as unpretentious as it never thought possible, with highly-textured walls that were indeed beautiful, but seemed like a by-product of laborious manual carving by creatures that had neither ill intent nor fantasies of luster rather than the the houses of other creatures above the surface made of wooden twigs lined with cheap ocher wallpaper mass-produced by dung beetles it was all so used to seeing; and also because the piles of corn were so badly laid out it seemed that the creatures which carved out this chamber had no sense of aesthetic balance, only aesthetic detail and convenience, exactly the opposite focus of aesthetic attention as compared to the beasts above ground.When it was full, the Grasshopper tunneled into the hills of corn and slept blanketed all over in the very treasure that it had so terribly longed for just hours ago. The Grasshopper was still afraid to set foot on the darkness, for it was not certain that this was not Hell, for it was slightly too warm here. All the better for coziness, it thought, as it fell into deep sleep. The Grasshopper dreamed that he was sleeping among the clouds of underground Heaven.

Imagine to what horror and shock it was that an Ant, discovered three days later2 that the store contained, instead of a stash of food full enough to endure 3 summers, a healthy, bouncing, and over-enthusiastic Grasshopper with TWO ENTIRE DAY'S SUPPLY OF FOOD GONE!

2 (not earlier, for the Grasshopper was well-concealed in the mountains that was the store's supply)

--- And 'Twas Whisked out of the Stores, Bound by three Soldier Ants, Trotting down the Tunnels ---

The Soldier Ant was furious, but it did not have the authority to deal with the Grasshopper. The Grasshopper was such an odd creature! How did the Grasshopper even survive so far, when it did not stock for winter? Beg for food? Raid anthills? These thoughts made the Ant even more full with rage as it led the Grasshopper to the lair of the Ant Queen where it will meet its eventual judgement and punishment.

But the Ant Queen --- oh, bless the Ant Queen's soul --- wasn't even angry at the Grasshopper! Instead, it was rather... amused by the Grasshopper. Amongst all of the Ant Queen's repetitive tasks of great administrative import, here was a huge insect, that was not red but green, and had jaws so small it could not injure, despite its size! And as it talked one could see its emotions, so lively and vibrant as a clear day after a shower and without the laze of a hot day; the Grasshopper was evidently intimidated when it first met the Queen, with a tongue so nervous and transparently aristocratic it deserved no more than the attention bestowed upon a bureaucratic rogue worker -- a dose of Bring Me Food Pheromones3. But in seconds, as the Grasshopper heard the sound of its own voice (and the lack of the sound of a person interrupting him), it grew more confident (as though it did not know its status and position) and springy4,; a few seconds later, the Grasshopper seemed like it could not settle down (did it have ADD?) at all! By losing its glib tongue, the Grasshopper seemed more -- animated.

3 (these pheromones did not work exactly as intended, as the Grasshopper was not an ant. The Ant Queen was quite puzzled by the Grasshopper's lack of reaction, hence the ant's silent caution towards the Grasshopper.)
4 (The reason why the Grasshopper grew more confident is because all his life, he had not met anyone patient enough to listen to his babbling, i.e. storytelling)

Back when it was in underground Heaven, the Grasshopper was scared to the bone when it saw movement along the ground (that was actually a worker Ant coming to the stores, smelling something unusual, and scrambling off). Next thing it knew, it smelt something that made him so incredibly fearful, it started hopping all over the place and causing a ruckus in general. It eventually discovered that the darkness below the mountains of corn was indeed terra firma, but that did not console it for long, for soon after came three painful and rough sets of pincers that very nearly crushed it, and dragged it to places that it could not imagine. As it was being dragged, it heard scratching, shuffling sounds, and balls of white travelling to and fro, only that these balls were bluish rather than yellowish. And sometimes, these balls were alive. Eventually, the pincers let go of him, and Grasshopper was thankful for that, but this was a very different place. It smelt of nitrates, but in a pleasant way. It was more airy here; but there was a cacophony of voices, a constant hum of activity from all around the Grasshopper that was ever so eerie. It jumped all over the place and discovered that this was, as before, a chamber, only larger, and that there was a corner of this chamber where a lot of those ghastly friar's lanterns it had seen while restrained by the pincers lay. It smartly avoided this place, for the brightness these things emanated did not look like that from a passageway out.

"Who are you, and how did you get into the stores?"

The Grasshopper began to realize, this sounded like Ant! But it had a voice so commanding, and maybe... this was a relative of Ant? The Grasshopper had a very, very distant cousin, as distant as the cockroaches; but the Grasshopper never got to know the males for long; once the more unfortunate ones married, their wives ate them to provide nourishment for its eggs. (even while they were having intercourse!) But its distant cousin no longer loved the Grasshopper, it always tried to eat the Grasshopper whenever it saw it. Surely the Ant's relative was kinder?

"My most kindred whoever-you-are, I am a mere bug, and I collapsed outside of an Ant's hill. The next thing I knew, I was in an extremely dark place, as is it in here right now; I was starving and smelt corn and ate it, not caring of the consequences for I was at death's door. Dear whoever-you-are, I am a creature which may serve you well, for I have been to many places almost unimaginable; my knowledge will be of immense use to you and your... family."

There was a long pause, which to the Grasshopper seemed as long as the time when he was being led about in the darkness by the pincers.

"I see." the Ant Queen replied, and the Grasshopper was extremely relieved; the Grasshopper livened up, knowing that whoever-it-was was not going to eat it. In reality, the Ant Queen had not grasped even one bit of the Grasshopper's speech, the Ant Queen only knew that the Grasshopper had eaten its food, and that the Ant Queen must somehow find a way to get the Grasshopper to pay back the cost. The rest sounded like gibberish to the Ant Queen.

But slightly curious that there would actually exist a creature that did not have food stored for the winter, the Ant Queen asked, "What were you doing last summer? It made you starve so badly that you actually ate from our stores that we toiled to fill."

Grasshopper replied, with every mouthful it spoke rivaling the mouthful it spoke before that in words, because it was all too eager to share its personal reminiscences of summer, despite the current situation, "Hopping along the tips of the grass, jumping from blade to blade; did you know, the nearer to the tip of the blade, the grass adds a distance to my step? I feel as though I was jumping among those white cotton puffs that lay among the blue sky! Jumping among these puffs -- I call them 'clouds' -- should be like that, I imagine!"

"And did you know, if you look closely at the grass, they have fine, bright fur! Now that I mention it, they look a lot like the scales you ants have on your legs!"

"On the days that were rainy, I took refuge under those HUGE walls of ROCK that shoot up vertically and spread out, with very curious grass at the very end! But rain still passes through these curious 'trees' -- I call them 'trees' -- and when they do, they make a huge SPLASH, larger than the splashes you get from rain that does not fall from through these trees! But when it is sunny, you can see tiny stars through the trees, just like nighttime!"

While the Grasshopper recounted its tales, an almost non-existent wave of jealousy and sadness swept over the Ant Queen, jealousy and sadness because it could not experience for itself first-hand the amazing world outside that so verily excited the Grasshopper. Still, the Grasshopper spoke with a lot of jargon -- what were "stars" anyway? When the Ant looked up at the night sky, all it saw was a canvas of black, for it was more physically shortsighted than the Grasshopper.

The Ant Queen thought again, am I not already very happy tending to the hill? Managing my workers and storing our food because they say the winter will come some day? Why be like the Grasshopper, and see so many weird things, and starve in the winter? And what will these things do, how can they help me, when they don't even feed my hill? The Ant Queen did not see the point of the Grasshopper's escapades, only that these adventures brought the Grasshopper much joy, and that the Ant Queen itself was slightly afraid of such exploration.

The Ant Queen made up its mind. Food is food. Facts are facts. The fact is that the Grasshopper had eaten food, and fairness dictates that the Grasshopper must rightfully pay back the cost. The Ants will provide food and shelter for the Grasshopper in the winter -- during summer, the Grasshopper, with its powerful jump, will assist the Ants in bringing back food, twice the amount of the food that the Ants provide.

The Grasshopper agreed. It thought not all this that the Ant Queen had thought, for the Grasshopper was not an ant; to the Grasshopper, what the Ant had done was to provide the Grasshopper a stairway to life; not only will the Grasshopper be able to live with the Ants during this winter, the Grasshopper would also be working together with the Ants for the rest of the year! That meant that the Grasshopper would have many friends to talk to, friends who knew how to live well. This has been the most promising thing that had ever happened to the Grasshopper, better than his last discovery of "wheat"!

And so it was that the Grasshopper came to live with the Ants for the winter, the Ants providing the Grasshopper with food, and the Grasshopper bouncing along the tunnels of the Ants, just because it was happy and because it could. At other times, it told tales of its adventures to the maggot-like larvae of the ants, not knowing that they were deaf.

During summer, the Ants worked harder and happier than before, for this absurd creature which went to many places and knew a lot of useless facts loved them for their dependability and worked together with them, and they loved it back, especially with its geographical know-how that very occasionally aided them, and because the springiness in its step simply filled themselves with excitement and enthusiasm without needing a reason to be excited at all.

Then, the Ant and the Grasshopper felt in themselves:

It is best to have somebody else who simply likes doing such things help you do the things you don't like to do or find difficult to do. It would be disastrous if the Grasshopper hated the Ants instead, disastrous for the Grasshopper, and disastrous for the Ants.

The End

Points of Relevance of the Moral of the Story:

1) Does a service-based capitalist economy where everybody does what he/she like for others sound familiar to you?

2) First-world countries can be likened to the Grasshopper, with novel technology at every corner, and China and India can be likened to the Ants, though, the food scares imply a considerable number of rogue workers (the Government truly playing out the role of the Ant Queen.)

3) This "moral" can be said to be a consequence of some popular sayings. Opposites attract, or so some common sayings dictate. Duals attract, or so some theories indicate (Dual being a jargon word of that theory (I won't say what theory it is, it has little empirical evidence)). Similarly, the Singapore Government has at times been called "authoritarian", but I like to think of it as simply dominating, with a say in many aspects of the population, causing the population to simply follow-through with the Government's policies, and voicing dislike in a victimized, complaining manner, with no real intention to forge their own path. (Several aggressive parties and we're all doomed XD.)

P.S. As for the years to come, the Grasshopper no longer had reason to dread winter. Also, I need someone to edit this story to provide corporeal details like yucky, brilliant, rough, solid, heavy, light, smile, frown, etc. etc. I TOTALLY SUCK AT THOSE. TOTALLY. All I can do is vapid, insipid, wafting, amity, etc. etc. And that makes my story ultra rushed, like a train which had suddenly lost the use of its brakes. THX.


P.P.S Will be adding some content from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuptial_flight over here if I'm not lazy.