THEMES OF A ROSE

Modern Mania

Andrew is an ant. He is kind of shy, but hardworking, good-natured and determined. Sometimes the girls laugh at him when he tries to sound intellegent. He is, however, a pristine example of the social problems faced by the 'modern ant'.
He never knew his father, as his mother slept around the whole colony. His mother has always neglected him, barely even acknowledging his existance. He was raised in a sort of foster home environment organised by many of his relatives on his mother's side. Every day he is up before dawn, trudging down the pebbly paths of the colony on his six toeless feet, on the way to his dead end job as a hauler. All day long he hauls things into and around the colony without any pieces of machinery to make things easier, till atlast at the end of a long working day he collapses into his little bed inside the big dormitory. He owns nothing, he has no private space. He will work his job day after day after day for the rest of his life, without holidays or tea breaks. In fact, if you mention the word 'break' to him in a casual way he would either stare blankly at you for several moments or collapse on the ground in a fit of hysterical laughter before heading off back to work. His job is repetative and dull and there is absolutely no chance of promotion. Is it any wonder that he has trouble making complex social adjustments in adverse circumstances, or that he is unable to cheat when playing a game of poker, let alone know how to play poker, or that he has such a great tendancy to follow the leader and not break out of the herd (figuratively speaking of course, more literally he would be breaking out of the colony, but that has a fellonistic ring to it). Yet if you asked him, "Are you happy with your life?", he would give you that strange, concidering look poeple (and ants) give you when they are trying to figure out whether you or not you are insane, and if so, if now is a good time to start running, and shrug his shoulders and say "I spose so." before heading back to work.


The bassonet and the baritone bought a snack

Bertha is a bee. She is a natural optimist who always tries to see past the bad things in life to some good thing further off in the distance (probably with the hope that it is heading her way). She has no confidence when talking to men, collapsing into a pile of giggling nerves at the site of them. She will never mate. She will never know the joys of motherhood or be able to pass on her hard earned wisdom to the next generation. She also has a dead end job that only ends when she is too old to work (i.e. no longer on the fire-evacuation list). She was also neglected as a child, not knowing her father and being all but ignored by her mother (yet another career woman in the modern world), and being raised by a foster care service. "Ahh," you can hear a vocal minority (sitting in the back out of white-board marker range) exclaim, "Atleast Bertha has wings, so that she can soar through the air and absorb the scenery from a level that is not the maddeningly familiar 'grass roots vista' (seaside view not included). She can fly free, at one with nature, not traipsing around following a whole line of other ants all hoping that the first ant has directions." Is Bertha's life to Andrew's, like the cool ocean breeze is to the waftings of a manure pile? It may seem that way at first, but let's look a little closer. Bertha bee may be able to shed some light on the subject. "See these wings?," she says, gesturing to the glossy little back extensions tucked away behind her, "They may look like pure and unadulerated freedom (size: small), but there is a catch, you always fly for the hive." What she is getting at, I feel, can be more aptly concidered by looking at her vocation and what the future holds. Currently she is at the top tier of the ladder, she feeds the babies and cleans the hive, with the occasional bout of construction work thrown in for good measure, this has been her job since birth. In a little while she will be demoted to respiratory medium circulation facilitator (i.e. the ventillation system) for the hive, where she sits at the entrance of the hive and fans her wings all day in order to gennerate something of a current (a current large enough to cause a small strip of paper about a millimeter thick to bend slightly) which will theoretically travel round the hive and prevent everyone inside from suffocating. She will do this all day (and twice on hot days) till she is exhausted and flops down into her little borrowed bed in the dormitories for a couple of milliseconds of shuteye (figuratively speaking, bees cannot blink). From there she will be demoted to honey gatherer, where she will fly around all day (again till she is exhausted) visiting flower upon flower for a few drops of nectar. She will be lucky if she survives the day, what with all the predators, freak gusts of wind, people, dogs (not really predators, but due to the fact that they run around all day with their mouths hanging open leaking druel, it is invevitable that the occasional bee takes a deture down the pipe-of-no-return. The same could be said for some people actually.), and false suns (alright, I admit that false suns may be very few and far between, but you never know when one will show up, and maybe oneday one will, then, I am sure, the bees will suffer) that are lurking about just waiting to snaffle up a passing bee. And every day will be the same mixture of self-sacrificial adrenalin pumping boredom until she flaps her last (either due to the paralysis caused by dying or the cruelty of 5-year-old children).

All of a sudden wings aren't seeming such a blessing, all of a sudden being a lowly ant looking up at the big old sky through a towering forest of grass seems like a walk in the park (and sometime it literally is). But if you asked Bertha if she was happy, you'd get yet another of those strange, concidering looks, and another shrug of the shoulders, and another half-hearted answer, "It's what I do.", before she to hitches up her (figurative) trousers and bustles off again to work.

Sometimes bees and ants are wise in the ways of the life.