The Oil Spot

The ant had no words to describe the beauty at her feet. Beautiful doesn't exist in an ant's vocabulary, because beautiful rarely visits an ant's life. Each day this ant saw the dirt of her home, the dirt of her walkways, the decay of her food, and the blank faces of her sisters. She spent her time winding in and out of dark passageways, following acrid-smelling trails to dead beetles or abandoned food, and lugging bits of nutrients back to her colony. But as the days grew shorter and colder, she and her sisters wandered farther to find food. And in the course of her searching, she crossed a dark, vast land where she encountered this wonder. It was dark but colorful, with shifting, shimmering hues. The ant stopped still and lost what little sense of self and time she had. All she could see and think was color and awe. A powerful, bitter smell rose out of the iridescence and wrapped itself around her, but she didn't notice. The ant stepped closer to the beauty. The colors became even more vibrant and changing. She took another step and touched one leg to the glowing shades. It felt just as she had hoped -- thick and all-encompassing. She took another step, placing both legs into the shallow pool. The colors swirled around her legs, dancing and flirting with each other. The ant kept walking, walking into her dream, until she couldn't walk any more and the colors became everything.