on crushing ants

Him lumbering beast paused on his way across the sunken meadow, turning to see why his packmates barked. Ants were attacking their legs and paws, tiny things that stung hard. For years, the beasts had stood by while the ants multiplied - in hopes that the tiny threats would attack anything the beasts didn’t like. Now, though, the insects were latched onto the beasts’ own sensitive bits, tearing out skin, digging into orifices.

A juvenile beast went down, her pelt a carpet of stinging mandibles. In moments, she was dead. Outraged, the other beasts vowed to destroy the ants once and for all. Normally, the ants kept to themselves, but him lumbering beast had been stirring around in the stand of bushes were the crawling biters lived. Incensed at his audacity and upset that he had crushed many of their mates whilst in the throes of his stirrings, the miniscule moving mouths had decided to fight back.

“This is an outrage,” the beast bellowed, his voice hoarse and choking. “Cease this assault on my brethren!” He raised up on his hind legs, his broad back bathed in the light of a setting sun.
“You brought it upon yourself,” the ants cried back in unison. “You came to our lands and destroyed our cities, crushing the weak and the defenseless. You are reaping what you sowed - death, violence, and pain. We have too long stood by as you made your stirrings amongst the other insects, the weaker ones that could not or would not fight back.”
“But I was just trying to help my pack, to make the bushes easier for us to harvest!” the lumberer roared.
“You help no one by messing in our affairs, by crushing our people with every step. Enough is enough!”
With a sordid squeak, the ants launched a thousand and one assaults.

The beasts bled. And died.
Yet him lumbering beast - he who lead the entire pack - pledged he would continue to intervene where he saw fit. “I am exceptional, and this world needs me to show the way forward. So long as no one proves badder than me, it is my destiny to ignore the lessons of history and keep repeating the same mistakes with insane abandon. No one but my friends and I deserve to live well. Behold my terrible power, and shudder.”

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥