Winged saviours

I heard talk of this many times.  I’d catch the odd whisper as I passed the other workers in the dark underground pathways as we made our way backwards and forwards to and from the feeding grounds.  After work we would rest in small groups and we would talk about the day and catch up on gossip. Often the elders would entertain us by telling tales of the winged saviours.  We would never tire of the fantastic stories and I would keep an eye out for them when I was up on top. They were always mythical creatures, angels with gossamer wings that would rise up to save the colony in its darkest of hours.  They would take us to a new place, a safe haven, a paradise found, far away from the toils and troubles that befall us.   

And this season we have had our fair share of trials.  I had lost thousands of colleagues, millions perhaps but I’ll never be certain.  They were lost to the great orange mower with the flashing blades that sucked us out of our homes and hacked down the tall grass in our forests.  There seemed to be no warning when the next attack would come but the wiser amongst us said that it had something to do with the great cycle of light and dark that carries on outside of the safety of our colony, something to do with the gods being angry and we worked harder and harder to try and appease them. 

There were the powder attacks as well which always seemed to be when we finally got back on our feet, when our numbers grew to somewhere approaching full strength.  A white powder fell from the sky and stung our eyes and burned our skins and made it impossible to breathe.  The lucky ones were those who survived or those who died in an instant.  The unlucky ones lingered on, a shrivelled shadow of how they used to be who could not feed and would eventually just give up. 

I loved to hear the elders tell of these legendary figures and deep down I wanted them to be true, desperately wanted them to be true but never really believed they were real that is until then.  There had been a lot of activity that day in the colony, much more than normal and there was a ripple of excitement that could be felt right across the workforce.  I had not thought much more about it and had made my way back up the long climb to the outside and into the glare of the light.  All around there were huge crowds milling around.  The noise was deafening and the light was blinding and as I became used to the brightness and the cool wind that brushed across my back I suddenly saw that they were there.

On the rocks that surrounded the entrance to our colony and the grass that met its edge were hundreds of the most beautiful creatures that I had ever seen.  They were like us but bigger, much bigger, about the size of the queen but stronger and more noble.  Their black bodies had a deep sheen, sleek and slick and from their upper bodies sprouted a delicate pair of voile wings.  I gasped in awe.  In an instant the stories had come true.  I had lived to see the winged saviours, the celestial beings of myth and legend, the winged messengers that would save our colony and deliver us to paradise and all I could do was watch them rise gracefully and effortlessly into the breeze and disappear out of my view.