Kenneth Kang
Thursday, September 12, 1996
English - Indian Poetry
Creation Myth
At first there was a giant, lone, space ant. She floated in space, drifting from galaxy to galaxy, from star to star, from orbit to orbit. She came down to a small planet blue planet and built huge mounds. Her powerful legs pushed mud from the waters and threw it on the land. Each hunk came down with a thud, shaking the earth. In these mounds, she laid eggs which hatched into little ants. The smaller ants covered the whole world. The little ants built more and more mounds, walking from the sea and carrying one piece of sand at a time. Her progeny lived long, prospered, and was fruitful and multiplied.
One day, they all got together and stomped and chanted on each mound, one at a time. Each mound slowly began to move and walk. The mounds would saunter back and forth, neither living or dead. Over time, these mounds learned cooperation and survival from the smaller but smarter ants. The mounds made thumping sounds and learned to communicate. Slowly and slowly, they began to breath the air, drink the water, and eat the plants. They talked and lived, chatting, discussing, and collaborating. Working well together, the mounds built large buildings, toilets, cars, and freeways. Soon the smaller, but smarter ants were a pest and the mounds made pesticides. They killed all the ants off, because they ate the mounds' plants and got into the mounds' luxurious homes. The mound thus prospered and filled the earth with joy, families, and friends.
Only several eons later, during an archeological find, the mounds learned of their creators. Some said ha, let those clunkers stay dead. However, the majority of mounds wanted to do something for their creators. Some proposed a monument, while others wanted to take after the giant space ant. Launching rockets into space, the mounds used robotics, made, and launched giant mechanical space ants to replace the old ants. With the advent of celestial biotechnology the mounds sent biologic giant space ants on the mission to spread and found new ant societies.
One of those ants happened to chance upon a planet already infested with humans. Fortunately for the pesky humans, this ant was not the size of a continent. It had lost a lot of weight because she had spent several million years in space. Upon reentry, the humans saw a streaking light. The ant was en flambé and burned a hole along a mighty river. This is how the Grand Canyon formed. She went along and made little ant hills and laid eggs. These eggs hatched, and red ants came out because she had been scorched by the heat of reentry. The mama ant went to the ocean to gather tons of mud to make mounds, but she drowned.
Another giant ant landed on a planet and made more huge mounds. This time, she took her time and some weird mounds. She started off with a rectangular mound and added two long mounds to one end. Then she added a short mound between two long mounds on the other end. The hot sun of this planet soon dried and hardened the sea mud mounds. When the ants danced, the mound cracked. The mama ant freaked and committed suicide by chewing on hemlock, opium, cocaine, marijuana, and other poisons. But, the little ants were persistent and picked up the broken hardened mud. When the mud was gone, they saw some soft pinkish looking mound that remained. They danced on it, and it got up on the two ended side and danced with them. In this way, they got all the different mounds to wake up. When this was done, the ants all shouted, "humans," which was their word for hurrah. Thus humans were made by ants.