No Grumble

A blood curdling scream escaped from Hannah’s mouth when she awoke to find that she had six legs instead of two arms and two legs.

“What’s happening to me?” she kept asking, the questions directed at no one because she was alone. She could not move in her new body. She did not know how it all happened and she didn’t have anyone to ask any questions. She surveyed her surroundings and realized to her relief, though very minimal, that at least she was still in her own room and still on the bed which now looked like a vast ocean of wavy blankets and bed cloth. She wanted to slap herself back to life if it were a dream but she could not with her new limbs. After what seemed liked forever, and after she realized that the tears were not changing the situation neither was it helping, she gave up crying and feeling pity for herself and tried once more to walk in her many limbs. She wondered why of all the animals she could transform into, she happened into the body of one she despised.

She despised ants for their presence everywhere. She despised them for their invasion of her room. Most of all, she despised them because they were one of the animals mentioned in the bible as having a good quality God would want man to learn from and she could never get that opportunity of being mentioned in the bible too. “What are ants anyway?” she blurted out angrily at the bible the first time she came across that scripture. That day, she had snapped the bible close with a vehemence known only of people who were guilty of a crime but would not bring themselves to acknowledge the guilt.

She walked for what seems like a lifetime and finally reached the seam of her bed and saw other ants with loads on their back in a long file. She seemed out of place but she could not stay there and watch them forever so she decided to join them; but as she advanced, the whole group suddenly halted and all heads turned in her direction. She received a stern look from the leader of the group and was pointed to the far end of the file to a pile of bread crumps. She wanted to throw a tantrum, one that always worked on her mother, but realized that wouldn’t work and grudgingly started for the end of the file. She was exhausted by the time she reached there. She lapsed into self-pity again because she remembered that when she was human, she did not have to work and always had a tinge of dislike for and jealousy toward her sister who always was on the move and received the approbation of everyone. When assigned a chore in the house, she only had to stall a bit or give an excuse to escape the work. Sometimes she threw a fit of hysterics and her mother, who pampered her, would give in to her whims. She tried desperately to stop those memories of her own laziness and selfishness from haunting her but she could not. They came crushing on her in torrents. As she lifted one bread crump and joined the file of ants, she wanted so much to blame her mother for not pushing her hard. Now she was forced to do all those things she hated to do as human: work all the time, work with a team and save for a rainy day.

She regretted not having learned to be hardworking and selfless when she was human, now she had to learn them the hard way. One day of work seemed to her like a lifetime of work. She was exhausted beyond words and for the first time, with sincerity she prayed, “I hated work because I was selfish; if only I had another chance, I would do what is right without a whine nor grumble.”

Mawufemor A. Amuzu
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