The Unexpected Visitor

Vincent took a bottle, went to the courtyard, and filled it with some ants. Time and gravity were present in the painting space so as were the sun and moon, the four seasons; spring, summer, fall, winter and plants and oxygen, but there were no animals. Vincent decided to put some specimens into the painting space himself.

At this moment, he heard a voice outside the gate, “Vincent, what brings you home?”

Vincent stood up and saw a girl with a wine-red helmet, sitting on a motorbike outside the gate. She was staring at him, surprised. Vincent put down his short-handled hoe and bottle and walked to the door. “You are?”

The girl removed her helmet at once and said, “I am Ruby!”

Vincent was embarrassed. The girl was pretty and looked familiar, but he could not remember her and did not know what to say. Suddenly, he remembered a joke that he had read from the internet. A teacher met a student, but both of them could not remember each other’s name. The student could only say, “I remember you, that—teacher!”

“You are that student!”

Ruby looked at Vincent in disappointment for a while then she put the helmet under her armpit. “Hey, don’t you remember me?”

Vincent was extremely embarrassed. “I’m getting old and my memory has failed me. Can you tell me who you are?”

“I am Rose’s younger sister!”

Vincent looked at her and said, “Rose’s sister?”

Vincent gestured with his hand and said, “You have grown up!”

Vincent immediately replied, “Of course, I’m in high school now!”

Rose was Vincent’s first love. Given his current health situation, Vincent had no wish to meet any old friends or relatives and just wanted to spend his remaining days alone, not to mention a person like Ruby. When Vincent was dating Rose, Ruby was in primary school.

Vincent had not contacted Rose for six or seven years. Ever since they graduated from high school, they had gone their separate ways. Rose went to Empire State University, and Vincent had gone to a normal university. Rose had made things very clear when they broke up. Vincent had not been able to get over it for a while back then, but during the past two years, he was able to come to terms with it. However, that did not mean that he wished to see her again.

Vincent nodded and said, “Oh, I remember you. Is there something you need? I have quite a lot going on here!”

Ruby knocked on the security grille and demanded, “You remembered me! So why haven’t you opened the door!”

Looking confused, Vincent opened the door, and Ruby pushed her motorbike in. “You have such a big courtyard. I’ve always thought of it as my ideal playground since young. Every time I pass by your house, I take a peep at it, but I never expected to see you here. What were you doing in the courtyard?”

Vincent put away his tools and said, “Nothing, I was just tidying up. Since you are here, come in and have a drink!”

Ruby was wearing a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a large vest. Through the armholes, one could see her bra. Her outfit was sexy and daring. Vincent did not expect the runny-nosed little girl of the past to have grown up to be so sexy. Suddenly, he felt so old.

“My family moved to the development nearby. From the street outside your house, you can make a detour to the back of the development. I just came back from Carrefour, and did not expect to see you in the courtyard!”

Ruby rattled on. Vincent placed two bottles of drinks and some snacks on the table. “Time flies. How is your sister, Rose? Is she married?”

Ruby looked dubiously at Vincent and said, “Why? You still can’t get over your old flame? Are you trying to go back to her?”

Vincent shook his head and smiled. “It has been a few years, and the memories have faded. I asked only because we are still friends, and you happen to be here.”

Ruby immediately replied, “My sister is studying in the Empire State Kingdom. You won’t be able to see her at the moment. Why are you back? I heard that you were doing pretty well in Fyre.”

Vincent tried to avoid the question and asked, “How did you know that I was doing pretty well? I was just an employee!”

Ruby narrowed her eyes and said, “Isn’t everyone an employee? Don’t tell me you want to be a boss!”

Ruby stayed in Vincent’s house for quite a while, leaving satisfied after finishing up a big packet of walnuts. Vincent suddenly felt that the air had become fresher with Ruby’s presence.

Vincent let the ants into the painting space, but all of them died in an instant. This was not due to the environment. Those were natural deaths. He slapped his head and felt like a fool. Although the lifespan of a worker ant could reach six to seven years, it would be dramatically reduced if the worker ant left its colony and lived without its queen. Furthermore, time moved 10,000 times faster in the painting space. These worker ants could only live for a few seconds. It was not possible to form a colony.

Vincent immediately turned to the internet. Hardly any of the items that he needed could be bought over the internet so he searched through the agricultural cultivation forums, found some people that worked in the related fields, and ordered from them after some discussion.

Two days later, Vincent received his package. It was a special jar with lots of intersecting tunnels, where ants crawled around, and at the bottom of the jar was the queen ant. It was an ants culturing jar.

Vincent opened the jar and let the queen ant into the painting space. The plants bloomed, and colorful trees and shrubs filled the area. The trees seemed to have shrunk, which could be due to the gravity and other environmental factors.

It was a pity that there was no sign of any animals. With enough time, Vincent believed that the painting space might be able to generate its own two-dimensional animals. However, time was not on his side.

Vincent buried the ants jar shallowly in the soil of a hillside and started making observations. He saw that under the accelerated time, the ants had started to spread out, filling up the hill.

The days and nights came and went, making one feel as though they were watching a fast-forwarded documentary movie. In less than two hours, two to three years had passed in the painting space and a new generation of the ants had replaced the original ones. It looked like the ants formed a unique civilization. They had precise and detailed segregation of duties. Just like human beings, each of them was like a screw that could not be removed from a machine. Should any ant leave the colony, it would not survive.

“Ants are amazing creatures!”

Four seasons had come and gone, and time passed by quickly. After a day, the original queen ant died, and new queen ants took over. However, there seemed to be two different colonies under two queens.

Vincent also found that the two colonies took difference evolutionary paths. One colony went down into the ground while the other had wings and built their nests on the mountain peak. Vincent named them ground ants and flying ants.

On the fourth day, there was a huge transformation in the two colonies. Originally, there were the worker ants, soldier ants, male ants, and queen ants, but gradually, there was a further breakdown of their roles. The flying ants occupied the sky and took on a different form. If Vincent had not been observing them, he would not have known that they were of the same origin.

The flying ants evolved into a species similar to bees. The color of the ground ants faded, turning golden, and then they went deeper into the ground. With this evolution, the two colonies split-up further. The different colonies gradually spread out to the entire island.

On the sixth day, some ants started to move close to the sea. The limbs of those ants started to become vestigial, and the ants evolved into a species that was able to survive in the water. The painting space was flourishing and diversifying. It amazed Vincent that a small colony of ants was able to produce such a large variety of strange lives.