Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 3 2018 | Page 20

Stomp
Carmel School Association Elsa High School, Aloobi, Shelly - 13
W
e’re stuck. Or at least that’s what I’m told. Stuck in the worst place of all. A place that is so
horrid you would have never thought it existed. We’re stuck on the bottom of a shoe. You,
the reader, are a person while I, the narrator, am an ant. You probably step on ants, us, just for
fun. A relief, you may call it. We do no harm to you yet that is what happens. That’s just the way the
human society works and we all live with it. On the bottom of a shoe.
After we got stepped on by it, the shoe, it, and us were taken to a cold place, called museum, or
California, people call it both so I’m not sure. Here, in this place people constantly look at the shoe and
their mouths suddenly drop open. I believe the shoe has a power, a power that causes people’s mouths to
open wide like they are a roaring lion. We must escape the bottom of the shoe, not only to return to the
other ants in the tribe, but also to make sure that the shoe won’t cause our mouths to fly open forever. If I
could escape, I would, but I can’t. I cannot escape myself, I need others who will help me. Other eager ants.
Not those which I am stuck with. They don’t believe in change. They are the lazy ants of the tribe. We like
to call them grasshoppers. They’re hopeless but I must convince them. We must escape. My name is
Antonio and I will be the first ant in existence to escape a shoe! Operation escape begins now!
***
All is dark and the nonchalant ants, the grasshoppers, are asleep. They have finally stopped chewing on the
shoe’s bottom roof, our only food source. I suddenly feel something. Something is touching me. Like it
wants to squash me with its finger. A finger, a human. Someone is touching the shoe. Is it trying to kill it,
the shoe, or kill us? Wait, no. It’s picking it up. The shoe is moving. We are moving further and further
from escape. I must wake up the other ants, the grasshoppers, they will understand now and they will help
me escape. I call the other ants in panic, ‘Wake up, wake up!’ I say but there is no answer. ‘Wake up!’ I say
once more but they refuse to answer. All I hear is the echo of my words calling and answering me. ‘Up, up,
up,’ they say to me. With the other ants asleep, all hope of escaping is starting to vanish so I listen to the
echo, the only voice I can hear except my own one. I look up. All I see are small engravings from when we
ate. I then look closer. That, is when I see the real purpose of why the other ants were eating all day for
weeks on end. They created a hole in the shoe. An escape. There is hope. Perhaps this was a surprise, they
listened to me. I climb through it and see a human with blue eyes looking and examining the shoe. There is
something odd about the human, not only is he wearing this black mask on top of his face only revealing his
blue eyes, his mouth is not wide open. He’s not harmless like most other people who come to museum or
California, he’s different. He has a stare like he has some sort of intentions, evil intentions. That is when I
realize, he is stealing the shoe to get power. The shoe has power so it would all make sense. He’s a thief!
‘We must stop him!’ I yell as loud as I have ever yelled so that the other ants hear and help. They come
running within seconds and spot me but it’s too late, the thief has left while the shoe with us in it has been
stolen!
I start sobbing in terror. Not only could we have escaped together, we could have also stopped a
thief. I now feel that I wouldn’t be doing justice to both the ant tribe and the human society if we don’t do
both. Suddenly in the midst of my crying, we start moving. We are in a human vehicle. A huge one. One
of the other ants hushes me and tells me to stop crying rather angrily which encourages me to cry even
more. I cry as if I have the moon toppled on top of me, tears streaming. That same angry ant approaches me
again and apologises yet hushes me once more. ‘They are thieves and we must stop them! Now’s not the
time to cry about your failure, it’s the time for you to learn from it. Don't underestimate us ants, just
because we are labeled as lazy does not mean we lack strength and the ability to learn from failure,
something you need to develop. We are stronger because we have a name splattered before us. Now, it is
time for you, Antonio, to become stronger. If you want to succeed in life, always remember to learn from
your mistakes not go down and fail from them.’ He tells me compassionately. I stopped crying. I now
understand.