A Journey to an Ants' Nest(Reham Gamal) A Journey to an Ants' Nest

The first time my grandmother told me a story about ants, when I was seven years old, I was very interested and excited. This story made me realize how the world of ants is very pure, helpful, and cooperative. Indeed, it pushed me to read more and more about this magnificent world. Many years later I longed to be an ant, and I longed to live in their world until I was 16 years old when I made a journey to an ants' nest.

One day, I went on a pine forest trip with my friends. It was an outstanding day: the sky was clear, the sun was shining, and birds were singing. On the first three hours of the trip, we played with each other, hunted some wild animals, and picked some fruits. Then, my friends began to prepare for dinner, and I left them as I wanted to contemplate this beautiful scene of nature. While I was walking along the huge trees with their tall branches, which were swaying in the wind as if they were dancing, hearing the beautiful songs of birds, I saw something which was shining on the ground among the green grasses. I took it, trying to know what it was, but, suddenly, something unexpected happened. This indefinite thing turned into a huge man. He did not look like a human being or an animal. In fact, I could not define its features because of the shock. At that moment, I got frightened; my knees were shaking madly, and I was too stunned to move, as if I were disabled.

"Be quiet!" he said in a very strong voice, "I am here not to harm you. I am at your service."

"Who are you?" I said in a very trembling voice.

"I am an imp, and I am ready to make all your dreams come true. Just order me."

In fact, I did not believe him at the beginning, but all what occupied my mind at that time was my dream to see the world of ants. Accordingly, I told him that my dream was to be an ant. He agreed with this idea, yet he told me that he was able to convert me to an ant for only one day. A few minutes later, I found myself in a very small body, I was moving very quickly, and I could not see anything except the green earth. Then, I found an ants' nest on the corner of my left side under a gigantic tree. On entering it, after a long walk in a very narrow, tall tunnel, I saw the most amazing and glamorous scene I have ever seen. It was a very huge nest under the ground which consisted of several chambers. As a matter of fact, the architecture of this ants' nest, which is more or less like that of the human's large buildings, made me feel that those small and weak creatures are better than man as they use no equipment other than their hands and mouths to make such an amazing architecture. Indeed, I saw thousands of ants which were separated in many groups, and each group did its job efficiently and actively without getting tired or distressed. After that, I began to work with one of the groups, but, surprisingly, I found them planting a small tree to be a source of their food in the winter. Suddenly, we heard our friends, ants, were screaming at the top of the nest. At that moment, we rapidly ran to help them. We found a big cockroach who was trying to kill some of our friends; however, we were smarter than this cockroach as we conspired against it and killed it. Moreover, we took this cockroach to be food storage.

A few minutes later, I found myself outside this amazing ants' nest but as a human being. At that time, I was very sad, searching for this imp everywhere in order to have him turn me into an ant again, but I did not find him. In fact, it was an amazing day which taught me how to be co-operative, smart, and efficient.

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