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The Ant Story: A Lesson in Collective Consciousness

When I was six, I decided to follow an ant that had strayed from its sisters!

It was midday, and I was tending to my sheep—in our family, you must have a job to be considered a useful member.

I didn’t intend to harm that ant as it moved away from the colony; in fact, I tried to help it. I placed my hand on the ground as a barrier to make it return to its group, but it didn’t respond. Instead, with clear stubbornness, it intensified its efforts and tried to climb my hand. I wouldn’t allow that; I wouldn’t let it touch me with its many legs. So, whenever it got close, I pulled my hand back, hoping it would realize it was a fixed barrier and that it must turn back. But it did not retreat.

In my estimation, it wasn’t lost, nor was it on an assigned mission. It had covered all that distance in a single direction, heedless of what lay ahead, without pausing. It crossed my mind that it had left its group in anger and decided never to return!

Just then, my brothers called out to me. My mother had seen me in the sun and sent them to warn me to move into the shade. She had also sent food with them. I told them the sun wasn’t that strong, but they argued that if I didn’t move to the shade, she would punish me!

During my conversation with them, the ant disappeared! I scanned the area and around their feet, fearing they might have crushed it. But I couldn’t find it. It had vanished.

 

I didn’t exhaust my mind thinking about the possibilities of where it might have gone. I was a little sad that it had disappeared, as I had intended to catch it and return it to the rest of the ants.

When they took me to the shade, we got busy with the food my mother had sent and their brotherly care; they were mindful that I was the youngest. Suddenly, my eldest brother—who was ten—stood up, lifting his thobe from his leg, startled by a movement he feared was a scorpion or something similar. But there it was, that same ant, having climbed his leg while we were standing. He couldn’t control himself; he grabbed it between his two fingers and rubbed it until it crumbled! Then he went back to his food as if nothing had happened.

 

I grumbled internally at his reaction. He could have just brushed it off onto the ground without killing it in such a way. But my other brother’s shared indifference, and even his laughter and jokes about what happened, made me forget my discontent for a moment. I was drawn into their feelings and way of thinking, becoming part of their collective mind without resistance. So I kept quiet, made no comment, and did not object. I went along with them, accepting what happened as normal!

In the evening, my mother scolded and warned me that staying under the sun for too long would make me sick. My brother said, “He was following an ant”—he said it with a smile—but my mother didn’t smile and repeated her warning.

 

I asked her, “All ants look the same, how would that ant know its mother?! And would its mother miss it if it got lost?!”

“It’s just an ant,” she said. “They know how to deal with each other. What’s more important to me is that you don’t make yourself sick by staying in the sun.”

 

After my mother’s words, I began to look at ants with disdain! Let them die, whoever they may be. They are just many, ugly, black, and identical ants!

When I went to my bed and slept for a little while, I was awakened by a faint, unclear conversation mixed with crying. My brothers were asleep. I moved closer to the source of the sound. It was my mother and my sister, who was visiting us that day. My mother was telling her, “All men hit their wives. You have to endure and be patient. I used to be beaten by your father, and I was patient. It’s normal for men to hit their wives, and the wife must endure.” Then my sister spoke, but her words were not clear; I couldn’t hear them. I heard my mother responding to her, “Even if he is the one in the wrong, the wife must endure!”

 

In the morning, the family starts its day with coffee. I didn’t let my mother or sister know that I had heard their conversation the night before, but I found myself looking at my sister more often, sad that I had heard her cry yesterday while she pretended to be fine in front of our father today. It seemed he knew nothing of her suffering, for he said to my mother in a cheerful voice that he would bring the TV technician from the city center today—we were the last house in the village to get a television. Electricity had reached our village about a month ago; our village is remote, and the arrival of electricity was delayed due to its distance from the city center.

When I returned before evening, I found they had finished installing the television, and the technician was teaching my father how to operate it, adjust the brightness, the sound, and so on.

Today is Thursday: TV day in our house!

7:00 PM (Documentary Program: Contemporary Wars)- 

Then, they opened fire on them, a hail of bullets, and killed them all without a second thought!