The food taster swallowed and paused. A minute passed, followed by a sigh of relief. He took a step forward and dropped dead on the floor.
“Poison! They have resorted to poisoning the food supply!”, the queen bellowed in rage.
Several attendants quickly scurried to remove the body that lay at the queen’s feet.
“This is an outrageous affront to our sovereignty! How dare they!”
“Your majesty, please, we must remain calm.”
The queen turned to her general.
“Calm? How can you say we should remain calm?! If it was my lifeless husk being dragged from this chamber, would you still advocate remaining calm?!”
“Of course not, your majesty. But their attempt failed. We must remain calm lest we make an error in our response.”
“General, this has gone on far too long. They first set traps for our workers along the border, killing off who knows how many as they were bringing goods and food back to our lands. When that failed to do us in, they resort to trying to kill us all by poisoning the very food we consume. This must end!”
“Agreed, your majesty, but while we have the advantage in numbers, they hold the advantage of sheer might. We must be careful in how we deal with this. Perhaps if we were to explore into a different region to find an alternate source for food and …”
“No! The time has come, general, to take this from a war of slow attrition to one of direct action! We hold far superior numbers! We will overwhelm our enemy and take what is rightfully ours! Mobilize the army! Send our troops to attack and bring back our enemy in pieces!”
The general sighed, saluted, and turned to marshal the troops.
————————-
Anthony opened the cabinet door and jumped back as ants swarmed his kitchen floor. He reached into the cabinet and grabbed the can of ant killer.
“Jeez, these buggers just don’t give up.”
He covered his nose and mouth with his t-shirt and sprayed the swarm, watching as the ants died in the hundreds by the second. Within a minute, there was no movement among the ants.
He opened a window to let the room air out and walked out to look for his landlord’s phone number.
————————-
The queen stood alone in her chamber. The attack had failed. But another generation was on the verge of being hatched. They would learn from the mistakes of those who came before. If not, the ones that followed would be the wiser. And so it would continue until the land of plenty was theirs.