The sun was shining really bright again and the soil was getting warmer. This was precisely the sign the little ants were waiting for. They set out on a scouting outing in search of food. After three hours of relentless searching though, they came back to their anthill empty-handed. That never happened before, so all the ants raised an alarm and their queen requested for the scouts to be brought in front of her.
'What is the matter, my little ants?' enquired the queen.
'There's no food,' replied one of the scouts.
'Yes, there is no food to be found anywhere. Nothing is growing,' added the second one.
'Can you elaborate? How come there is nothing growing?' asked further their queen.
'We don't know,' said the ants in unison. 'The sun is shining, the water is abundant, yet nothing is growing.'
The queen was surprised and a little concerned to hear this and so were all the other ants. Not knowing what to think of this she concluded: 'We need to find out the reason for this calamity. Send out a thousand soldiers in all directions to provide an answer to this question. We can only remedy the situation when we know what the problem is,' decided the Queen dismissing the scouts.
A thousand soldiers dispersed in all directions. Hours later they came back exhausted yet, none of them had the answer.
'So you come back empty-handed?' commented the queen with a disappointed tone.
'Yes, your majesty,' a thousand voices echoed in reply.
'It is more serious than I thought. We shall send out the young future queens to resolve this mystery,' decided the queen retiring to her chambers.
And so the three young future ant queens set out on this special mission their colony's life depended on.
The three future ant queens decided to split in order to make their search more effective. One went up a tree. The second decided to stay on the ground and search in the grass. The last one decided to search under the ground along the roots of trees. The first of them returned to the colony swiftly and reported that amongst the trees there was no change: the beetles drilled, the bees buzzed and the fungi were pretty active, too. A few hours later, the two remaining future ant queens came back stating it was unusually quiet in the grass and underground.
'There seems to be no one digging the tunnels or processing waste. The soil is tired and arid. No millipedes or earthworms are at work.' reported the ant which went underground.
'The situation is similar in the grass. There is no one at work: no slugs or snails munching on dead leaves, no centipedes or earwigs eating the dying plants nor beetles decomposing the dead logs of wood,' finished her list the last of the future queens.
'No wonder nothing is growing!' exclaimed the queen. 'The soil is getting no nutrients. How could it produce anything?' concluded the ant queen pondering the problem.
'We need to find them and bring all of them back. The ecosystem will collapse without them and we shall perish,' she said decidedly and ordered the whole army to march put in search of the missing invertebrates.
Meanwhile, slugs and snails were having the time of their lives. Earthworms, earwigs and beetles were also having a blast. They were all so happy they left their boring lives filled with work behind. Playing all day and having no responsibilities was so much better. Their homes were looking a bit tired and so did the soil. It was not their problem though. They have worked so hard for years and no one appreciated them. Humans sprayed them with pesticides, birds pecked at them whenever they got a chance and other animals treated them with superiority. If they needed soil to grow food, it was their turn to do the dirty work - decided the invertebrates.
When the ants finally found them swimming in the puddle of water and having fun, they were deaf to the ants' pleas.
'We are not going anywhere! We are having fun and it is high time for that,' replied sulking the snail.
'Yep!' added the earthworm. 'We've been bullied and ignored long enough!'
'We understand but how can we all exist without you?' asked one of the ants.
'You ants are resourceful. I'm sure you'll find a way forward!' commented sarcastically the earwig.
The ants left the party deeply saddened by the selfishness of the invertebrates. They had to admit though that these worms had been underappreciated by everyone and most didn't even know about their existence. The ants also knew they had to convince the invertebrates to return to their duties. They just didn't know how they were going to do that.
The ants debated on the best way to approach invertebrates again. Some suggested they should plead with them politely and the worms would return to their tasks. Others thought explaining the problem would make the real impact. They all agreed however, that showing the worms how miserable was the world without them would achieve the best results. After all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. And so the ants took the worms around their devastated world where nothing was growing and nothing would grow unless soil would be restored to health. The invertebrates were somewhat shocked how big an impact they had on the world that surrounded them. The soil was tired and arid. No vegetables, fruits, plants or flowers were growing. Not even the resilient grass was lush and strong. The last green oasis where the trees.
The ants felt really proud of themselves seeing how shocked the worms were. So they added:
'We and the rest of the ecosystem completely depend on you. If you don't return to work, the soil will die completely. Nothing will grow in the dead soil, not even grass or trees. Without plants the Earth will become a desert with nothing to hold moisture in the soil. The soil will become even more arid, like sand. Without plants the animals will starve and disappear from the face of this planet. So you see you have to come back, because we all need you.'
The worms were stunned at how truly massive an impact they had on the world. They did change the world every day of their lives even though they were so tiny and you could not see their amazing work. In fact, you could more easily see the lack of it. They felt appreciated for the first time and it felt good! Without saying another word, they simply returned to their stations and started their daily toil together with fungi and other friends who compost for living.
