The Battle of the Monster Ant and a Black Widow Spider

(Dedicated to Vishnu Sharma, and his distant grandsons 
                        like Aesop, Le Fontaine & Borges)

When the monster ant challenged a black widow spider,
in a forbidden corner of a hunter’s lodge...
Though ants of the size of a rice grain are common,
imagine an ant larger than a popcorn. (Applause!)

Before the morbid duel of arthropods can ensue,
remember what I narrate is as true as sky is blue.

For half-a-billion years, spider-webs enraptured
ants mid-flight. The spiders feasted
on the juices of the proletariat ants
but it seemed tonight, the fable

could turn. Anxious house-flies implanted
cameras on their backs to telecast
the apocalyptic event. Rows and rows
of rice-size ants gathered on floor
to watch the duel ‘live’ on the ceiling-sky.

Ants used spherical lenses made of bubbles
to magnify this distant fantasy!
The death-match was to be fought
without any referee mediating;
Fangs and formic acid of the ant

against the sticky web and the guile
of the spider. The webmaster said,
“One act of heroism, one idea, the will
or virtue or the skill of a single being,
can transform the universe.

A victory for the monster ant threatens
the hierarchy of food-chains, and when fear
from the faces of victims vanishes, a despot
dies too.” Rousing itself thus, the spider
accepted the tantrums and terms

of the duel-of-insects. “For gory, and for glory”,
said the monster ant, “shall we fight”.
‘Give it back to the webmaster tonight’,
sang the ants in unison. The war began,
when the chief camera-fly, said: “Cheese!”

Battle-ready flying monster ant shot a jet
of formic acid into the spider’s compound
eye. Though noxious fumes clouded
the spider’s collection of miniature lenses,
webmaster retaliated with its spit-like

stringy fluid. But these abdomen spurts
from the blinded weaver missed the ant.
The monster ant now aimed its acidic jet
at the spinneret from where oozes the complex
fluid that turns into web. In the mid-flight

the two jets collided, creating fishbones and drops
that exploded on hitting the floor. Then ants dispersed,
and returned with acid-proof, transparent, bullet-proof,
omniphobic umbrellas. The nervy flies struggled
to keep their high-speed cameras rolling.

Both spider and monster ant were starved
for ammunition, and this was a battle
of wits (as much as it was of fluid
mechanics). The ardent ant decided
that a few bulls-eyes at the head

were its surest bet, and attacked meticulously
till the acid ate through the spider’s thorax.
Celebrations began when the spider fell,
but in the pell-mell, the monster ant itself
got trapped in a web of its dead nemesis.

The Queen Ant, adept in blue-blood politics,
now emerged and distracted her ignoramus subjects.
High on tequila, french fries and candy, ants danced below,
while the monster ant perished after a struggle --
a martyr carcass trapped in destiny's web.

In the recording of death-rattle captured by a camera
left-on by carelessness, the dying monster ant
proclaimed: “I curse you o thankless fellow-ants,
if the spiders were brutal killers so far, in future
they will be freakier and worse!”

First published in Indian Review, 2012