The colony began as a normal, thriving society of ants. The queen reproduced assiduously, and the various castes of workers tended to the larvae, or guarded the colony’s entrance, or collected food for everyone. The drones, who were also community organizers, kept to themselves, waiting for the appointed time when they would mate with the queen. Somehow, due either to a mutation or a rogue pheromone, these drones began to infect the other ants with “progressive” ideas, using their antennae as instruments of propaganda.
The first thing that happened was an interruption in the ant trail outside. Instead of carrying bits of food and detritus, some of the workers decided to station themselves at regular intervals on the line, and to collect toll. Meanwhile, in the nursery, a third of the crew abandoned its assigned larvae, and demanded to be shown the permits and professional licenses of the other workers. Most alarming of all, the soldier ants were letting in alien ants from hostile colonies. They were loathed, they said, to “profile” anyone, just because his or her formic acid smelled different.
Soon, the minor workers, tired of being harassed by the toll-collectors, formed their own unions. One group of ants carried only plant matter; another transported only millipede legs; another collected only dues; yet another took breaks, and nothing else.
And what of the queen? Without anyone to feed her, she ceased to reproduce her own kind, begetting instead quantities of pension liabilities, which quickly filled her chamber, and asphyxiated her. The death of the queen, however, did not destroy the colony. The ants had by then metamorphosed into bureaucratic parasites, and those organisms, as we know, live forever.
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