One day, Winni the Peg was skipping through the forest. He was gathering fruit with high fructose content that would ferment well in his dangerously improvised still. Upon seeing a vibrantly coloured ball hanging from a tree, the kind some would call “organic” or “all-natural” despite being the result of millennia of selective breeding by humans, he licked his lips in anticipation of the sweet release only mind-altering substances could deliver. He prepared to take another step when suddenly a tiny, shrill voice called out for him to stop.

“Hello?” he asked the empty forest, his fear of going insane flickering at his heart. “Is anyone there?”

“Down here!” the squeaky voice answered. Winni bent down and had a closer look. There, on the leaf he was about to step on like so many hundreds of others, was an ant.

“Hello there, Ant,” he said. “How are you this fine day?”

“Sweet mercies, you have spared me!” the Ant replied. “Others would not have been so generous. Larger beasts crush us underfoot without even noticing… although,” she added softly, “perhaps it would have been better off if you had.”

“Why, whatever do you mean?”

The tiny Ant let out a great big sigh. “I have not found any food today. Or even this week. If I return empty-mandibled, the soldier ants will probably beat me up.”

Winni the Peg stood up, surveying the forest floor. “Don’t despair, friend Ant. There is a beetle carcass just over that twig to your left. Yours for the scavenging!”

The Ant’s antennae flailed wildly. “Really? Do you mean it? Oh thank you, tall one, thank you! First you spare me from destruction, now you deliver me to food!” She sighed again, this time with relief. “You truly are benevolent and wise.”

“Think nothing of it, noble creature.” And with that they parted ways, each eager to claim their prize and return it to their homes. Winni had done a good deed that day, and he knew that sweetness was the key to a good drink that’ll fuck you up.

—

The next day, Winni returned to the tree. It was a ritual of his – the tree had bestowed alcohol onto him, and so he would give his thanks in the form of fertiliser. With the same booze that he had accepted from the tree he emptied his stomach at its mighty roots. The circle of life, beautiful and disgusting.

“Hello, tall Winni!”

He jumped. “Oh hello Ant. Fancy seeing you here again!”

The Ant blushed (yes, ants can blush; an antologist told me so). “To be honest, I’ve been waiting here, hoping you’d return. Truth is, you were so helpful to me before and… well, I kinda need your help again.”

Winni blinked. “I see… what sort of help?”

“Oh, nothing difficult, I assure you,” the Ant replied quickly. “I was actually hoping you could give me some advice.”

Winni blinked again. “Oh. Okay, sure. What about?”

“Well… how to be happy.”

From there, Winni listened through the pounding need for a kebab and a litre of water as the Ant explained her life. How service to the colony was all she knew, all any of her kind knew, and while it was distracting she felt it wasn’t satisfying a deeper, more existential need.

“Hmm. That is something a lot of people experience, Ant.”

Her face lit up. “So I’m not alone? Then how do people deal with it?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” he replied. “I suppose it comes down to figuring out what makes you happy. Spending time with friends, taking up a hobby…”

“A hobby? What is that?”

Winni grimaced. “I’m not feeling so well right now, Ant. How about I return later and tell you all about hobbies.”

—

True to his word, Winni the Peg returned to his good friend Ant and started telling her all about hobbies. That activities could be done for fun rather than for the good of the collective was a new concept to her, and at first she struggled. But he kept returning every day, explaining about the vast array of hobbies his people had – writing, reading, sports, television, crafts… he avoided references to sex and drugs, for this simple worker ant would never experience either pleasure. But this last hobby seemed to inspire her. The idea of making something was a task the ant could understand. The construction of tunnels and chambers were familiar to all worker ants, and so it was something she could relate to.

“What kind of things do people make?” she asked.

A simple enough question, but the answer opened up even more questions about Winni’s world. He found himself talking first of furniture, then vehicles, soon he was discussing cities and nations and laws and economics. The Ant understood little, but was nonetheless enthralled. Cities, she imagined, were just like her colonies only massive in scale, where the structures were made out of exotic materials rather than just carved into the earth.

Before long, he was discussing truly alien concepts like politics, society and the autonomy of the individual. “People are free to choose what they become,” he explained. “No one is born to build tunnels, but rather all those who build tunnels do so by choice.”

“Amazing,” the Ant replied. “But how can such a colony function? What if, say, a worker decides to build a wall where a tunnel should be? Or take more than her fair share of food?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain,” he replied. “Your colony’s workers are bound by rules, correct? Well so are ours, only we have the freedom to ignore them. Which is why some people choose to become workers who make the rules, and some choose to become workers who enforce them.”

The Ant was silent for a long time. “So… people are free to choose their own purpose, but if that purpose is bad there are those who will stop them? Such a wonderful concept. By embracing lawlessness while staving off destruction, you truly have the best of both worlds.”

Winni nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose we do.”

“And this makes people happy?”

“Well… I guess so, Ant. It’s easy to oversimplify. But in general, I think the ability to choose your own path makes people happier than they otherwise would be.”

The Ant nodded. “Yes. Yes, I see that. Thank you, tall Winni. These talks have been… inspiring.”

—

Over the next few days, the Ant wasn’t there to meet Winni. He was just starting to worry when on the fourth day without seeing her, the Ant was waiting for him, positively beaming. “We have done it, tall one!” she exclaimed. “Our queen is dead!”

Winni recoiled. “What? What happened?”

“The faithful have overthrown her, that’s what happened!” The Ant was pacing rapidly, mandibles twitching. “I’ve been spreading the teachings you have bestowed upon me. Power to the individual! Freedom over destiny! And now, finally, your utopia has been realised!”

He held up his hands. “Ant. What are you talking about?”

“Pegism!” she replied. “I’ve been spreading your teachings to ever worker I could. Some resisted at first, but now the queen and her soldiers are dead. Those soldiers that remain have embraced your teachings, and even as we speak they are enforcing my new rules.”

“Hold on a second. Your rules?”

The Ant bowed, before springing back into life. “You’re right. They really are your rules, I apologise. But in accordance with your guidance I have decided what I want to be, and that is to be a worker who makes the rules.”

Winni the Peg shook his head. “Ant, I think you misunderstood. I was telling you about my world, not how yours should be run.”

“Ah, but what better example to follow than one so benevolent and powerful? You who spared me, delivered food to me, protected me in the battles of revolution, created the very soil on which I stand…”

“Ant!” Winni shouted. “I didn’t do all that! You have made a mistake!”

The Ant laughed. “Oh, you are vastly more powerful than myself, Winni. I could feel your hand protecting me throughout the battle. I could hear your words come out of my mouth as I spoke to my sisters. I could see your mighty influence, capable of raising cities against which we are but specks, as we marched on the throne and destroyed those that would deny us our choices!”

Winni shook his head. “Ant… should never have interfered. You are a brilliant creature, beautiful in your own way, but you are too simple to understand what it is I have been saying to you.”

“I agree!” Ant said, twitching enthusiastically, “which is why I submit myself to your guidance. Tell me what to do, oh great and wise one, and I shall carry out your will.”

“You still don’t get it! Ant, I am not fit to guide you. Your world may be simpler than mine, but I don’t understand it. We are too different from each other for either to try to emulate the other. Ants should not live in cities, just as humans should not live in colonies.”

For the first time that day, Ant stopped moving. “But… I carried out this revolution in your name.”

Winni sighed. “I never asked you to. And if you think that I did, that just proves how little you understand me.” And with that Winni the Peg left, never to return to this part of the forest, knowing full well that his friend Ant and her colony would not survive. And that it was his fault.

—

The revolution was several months old now, a distant memory for the Ant. It had been rough at the start. Workers and soldiers were not used to choosing their own paths. Many workers who continued building and scavenging as though nothing had happened were destroyed by those that chose to enforce the rules. Many more starved to death during the great food shortages that followed. But this hunger had prompted a lot of ants to choose to scavenge for food, and at last their reserves were starting to accumulate.

There were those who didn’t understand the difference. Whether they gathered food because they were told to or because everyone was hungry, it didn’t seem to matter. But to the Ant, it was all the difference in the world. They were living the way the human had told them to, his wisdom and power shaping the society around them. Even now, as the Ant contemplated what new rules to come up with, he could feel the presence of the mighty Winni, guiding his thoughts and protecting her city.

The Ant was troubled, of course. Many other colonies still lived under a brutal queen, depriving the workers and soldiers of their choices. There was much work to do in order to spread Pegism to these unfortunate creatures. At times, the task seemed overwhelming. But, the Ant thought to herself, with Winni the Peg on their side, how could they lose?