Another day = another tale

So I mentioned ants and how I fear them. Let me explain.

I don't feel threatened in the presence of any ants I've ever laid eyes on. I do, however, know that the ants I've laid eyes on are the biggest pussies the ant world has to offer. Our black and even red ants are jokes compared to other continents (as is most of our wild life). They don't do much besides eat crumbs off our floors or get sniffed by my dog.

But did you know if you microwave an ant it doesn't die? Yah. Seriously. And have you ever tried to drown an ant? It's not easy. That's still nothing though. Some ant species we don't have can explode at will to cover an enemy in its stomach acids. If you've heard of the Bullet Ant you'd know its sting rivals a gunshot in pain. There are some (I believe from Africa) that have a sub breed in their colony with mandibles so big they can't actually feed themselves. They need smaller ants to crawl on them and put food in their mouth. They've literally evolved to be a killing machine.

But that's alright. Plenty of organisms have dangerous abilities and, as you may have noticed, none of the ones I've mentioned are inherently deadly. Well these weapons are all hardware to ants' software. And as we all know: Software is king.

Ants will attack anything. They will charge blindly at any foe that's been marked and throw their lives away in the name of the queen. I've seen videos of ants taking down crabs. The bigger ants were actually pulling pieces of the crab's plating open so smaller ants could climb in. That's right: they actually work as a team.

They outnumber us a million to one, they can carry 20 times their own weight and there's over 10,000 recorded species in existence. I'm not saying I think we're in danger of them (yet..) but if we were what could we do about it? How the hell could we possibly stop ants? We couldn't.

So my 'fear' of ants isn't irrational. It's actually incredibly rational. My fear of planes is another story.

A weird dream I had

I'm looking down at these cement steps and see this colony of giant red ants just pouring out of the cracks. They're absurd looking, unlike any real ants I've ever seen. Despite my usual pro-nature tendencies, my instinct is to get a can of Raid and kill every one of them. Why? Because ants scare the shit out of me. If anything is gonna overrun the world it'll be them. But that's another tale for another day.

What happens when I spray these ants is a little hard to explain. Imagine being in one of those hemispherical snow globes. There's a distinct seam between land and sky. Well in this case, that seam began to split. Clouds of gas were spraying out of it and I realized the ground I was standing on was dropping. I looked up in time to see the shell of the sky remaining in place out in space.

Next, I'm floating (for a lack of a better word) in empty white space. I don't remember what I was thinking but I'm positive my mind was blank of the fear or wonder you'd expect to feel at that point. The first thought that came to mind was of a girl I know. At times I've loved her as a friend, others as more than a friend and sometimes as a sister. I'm not sure how I felt about her then but I knew I felt close and the only thing I was thinking of was seeing her.

Worried about her? Missing her? I don't think so. I just wanted to experience whatever this was with her. For a moment I thought about the two of us sharing a relieving hug. Before I finished the thought I realized we were hugging. The scene was changing and I found myself in what I can only describe as the nicest train station minimart I've ever been in. In the way that a movie set only looks whole from the right distance and angle, this room was incomplete. The white glow shone beyond its doors. The room was quite small.

I backed out of the hug and saw my the look on my friend's face. It looked like mine felt. No worry or confusion: just a careless (but timid) curiosity. Without a word we walked together to a rack of magazines. There were dozens of different kinds but each cover was of something I thoroughly enjoyed. There was only one copy of each and they were placed in a perfectly spaced and even arrangement.

I picked one up and said "Watch." I thought of either what I expected to be on a given page or what I wanted to be on that page. Fanning through the pages blindly and selecting one at random revealed that my guess was right. There was an image of exactly what I'd claimed there would be.

I did it again just to be sure. This time I caught the attention of a couple I hadn't noticed behind us. They shared the same expression my friend and I did. The four of us discussed this place we found ourselves in. How we got there and how to get back weren't important. We were more concerned with what it was and what it meant. The other man picked up a magazine and I confidently predicted what he'd see when he opened it.

I was wrong. And I was gone. I felt like I had woken up, not from sleep but from a dream. I had left one place without arriving at another.

That's when I actually woke up and tried to think of what it could mean. The thing is I don't necessarily believe dreams mean anything. Sure, they could indicate things from time to time but not always. In this case I think it was just nonsense. That doesn't mean it wasn't a cool experience though.

It makes me want to get back into trying to have lucid dreams. I once spent a week drinking mugwort tea and pinching myself throughout the day, asking myself "Am I awake?" These things are supposed to help you get there but it didn't work for me. I'll give it another shot though. I've got half a bag of that Mugwort laying around and it looks like pot. Don't feel like explaining it to anyone that finds it.