Forage
Once there was a vast and beautiful garden. It was not ruled, owned, or divided, but tended together by every creature according to its nature. The soil belonged to none and sustained all.
Then, slowly, some inhabitants began to believe they were entitled to more than their share. Not simply more food and more shelter but, more control. From that hunger, subtle at first, the Garden began to change.
For many seasons it endured. Paths remained open. Water still moved freely through root and stem. Insects of every kind lived alongside one another, differing in belief, method, and custom, yet free to move, work, and live without permission. Disagreement was common, but the ground beneath them was shared.
Over time, imbalance deepened. Certain beds were worked until they cracked and hardened, while others grew thick, shaded, and untouched. The Garden did not collapse all at once. It thinned at the edges, where exhaustion settled first, where effort no longer yielded reward, and where those who once spoke for the workers now spoke only to one another.
In one part of the garden, Labour Beetles still marched the paths. They spoke of fairness and toil, but their mandibles were polished and their shells well fed. The working insects listened less with each season. Instinct told them that these beetles no longer dug beside them.
It was here that a spider called Forage saw his chance.
He scurried from behind the compost wall, silk catching the light in an unfamiliar way. He was a Steatoda nobilis, venomous and beady eyed. His web was reinforced with strands not spun in the local garden but funded by nectar-soaked patrons elsewhere. He positioned himself carefully above the soil, taking care never to touch it.
He spoke loudly and plainly, wrapping accusation in humour and certainty, as if volume itself were proof of truth.
“Look at the Labour Beetles,” he scoffed. “Look how soft they’ve grown. They no longer know your weight, your hunger, your broken wings. They pretend to speak for you while feeding from shaded beds.”
The Garden stirred, and many insects drew closer to listen.
“I am merely another insect,” Forage said. “I know your fear. I know your struggles. This Garden has been taken from you, not only by those who claim to protect it, but by foreign insects from poisoned gardens.”
Forage knew his venom talent, it was not to kill but to persuade, working quietly, wrapping around doubt, sliding between instinct and reason, and leaving many convinced they had discovered the truth for themselves.
His words slid easily past their own contradictions.
“The Hornet Tories cannot be trusted,” he declared.
“What about the wasps and hornets defecting from the Hornet Tories to join your webform party though?” quipped a little aphid, confusion in its voice.
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Forage only grinned.
“A sting,” he said with narrowed eyes, “is only dangerous when it serves the wrong side.”
Each day he spun new Threads. Warnings of invasion, decay, stolen nectar, and betrayal. They were read aloud to gathered flies and moths. These readings were called public service, though each was rewarded with more nectar than a worker insect could earn in a lifetime.
Beyond these performances, Forage tended his many side silks. He advised foreign mantises. He appeared on broadcast webs so that his voice echoed throughout the Garden. His phrases became familiar, repeated quietly by insects as if they were their own thoughts. Still, he insisted he was no different from those below.
Beyond the Garden, greater powers pressed closer.
To the west lay the United Sticks of the Am Acres, where President Stump dazzled and devoured in equal measure. To the east stretched the iron tunnels of the Dada Xi Beetle of the Asiaphids, permitting only one direction of thought. Across the Channel Stream buzzed the scarlet swarms of the Cagey Bee, orderly, enclosed, and watched from within.
Forage spoke constantly of foreign powers, painting them as threats or allies depending on which would pull him closer to the centre of the Garden. He had no real power yet, but he hungered to be the face of authority in the United Wingdom, willing to twist, trade, or betray anything to achieve it.
His true aim was to turn the Garden into a Petal Province, rooted here but governed elsewhere. He spoke of protection, of sovereignty, of taking back control, while quietly preparing to sell the soil beneath their feet.
“Nothing is being taken,” Forage said. “Things are simply being put back where they belong.”
Yet it was his deliberate chaos that spread fastest. Insect turned against insect through slogans, fear, and banners flown to mark territory where none had existed before. Old paths narrowed. Meetings grew hostile.
Those who warned of what was happening were dismissed as alarmists, traitors, or pests. “The Garden is strong,” Forage said. “Fight those who ask you to think of others.”
And so, the web thickened.
It did not bind everyone at once. It never does. First it caught the tired, then the angry, then those who believed themselves too clever to be caught at all. Above them, Forage remained untouched, legs clean, eyes forward, insisting he was only reflecting the will of the Garden.
Below, the soil grew quieter.
The Garden still stands, for now. Flowers still bloom. Wings still beat. But the ground is no longer shared in the same way, and more insects look upward than outward.
Unless the insects shake the husk from their eyes, stop mistaking noise for truth, and rise together against what has been spun above them, it will endure.
Unless they act as one, one day soon there will be no Garden left to argue over. Only strands, and a realisation they allowed the destruction willingly, loudly, and together.
