The Bridge

The dew was thick, the grass was soaked. The hero of our story valiantly fought through the luscious green grass on a trek for food. You see, our hero lived in a village where everyone worked together to find food. The food they found usually went straight to the leader of the tribe, the Queen.

The village has an unnatural ability to accomplish big tasks working together as a team. When the village works together they can usually gather tons of food, plenty for the Queen and everyone else. The hero of our story, however, was recently banished from the village. When the hero was banished he vowed he would find a way to prove his worth to the village. He had been banished because the village thought he did not contribute enough.

While our hero was searching for food he came across an enormous body of water, you might call it the ocean. This giant sea was near the village. Everyone knew that there was no way to get across the giant sea but many had heard that across the sea there was an abundance of food. There were fruit trees, vegetables and just about everything the tribe loved to eat. Our hero suddenly had an idea: if he could somehow find a way to get across the vast sea, he could prove to the tribe that he should rejoin them as a citizen of their village.

The hero tried building a raft but it was to no avail. He was incapable of building anything alone. He was used to working on a team. He then decided he would walk along the edge of the sea and look for a path to get to the other side. He remembered stories of old when sometimes, in some places, the water subsided and there was a path to the other side. After searching for several days he realized there was no way he would ever find a way to cross. Not to mention he was tired and out of food.

As he laid down his head to sleep, he prayed. He prayed to the gods that they would show him the way across. He fell asleep, dreaming of one day being able to set foot on the other side. Boom! He suddenly awoke in the middle of the night to a loud sound. He listened for a minute and heard nothing. Afraid of what could be out there, he stayed tucked away in his hiding place and fell back to sleep.

In the morning he went to investigate the loud sounds from the night before. Lo and behold, a giant bridge now spanned across the sea. The bridge was vast and seemed to have no end in sight. It was made of wood and appeared out of nowhere. The gods must have heard our hero's prayers.

Teeming with joy, he crossed the bridge. It took him a whole day but when he reached the other side he found that it was even more beautiful than the legends he had been told. There were enormous fruit trees like he had never seen before. It was green everywhere as far as he could see. The soil was rich and loose: perfect for digging. He returned to his old village and told them of what he discovered and they all joined him on the other side of the sea.

Who is our hero you might be asking yourself? It is an ant. From the perspective of the ant, it was a giant sea he had to cross, but to our perspective, it was simply a river. The bridge that suddenly appeared was just a fallen tree. The river had eroded the soil the trees' roots were in and eventually the tree fell across the river.

Author's Note:

This story is based on "Rama Attacks" by Sister Nivedita. In the original story, Sita was being held on the island Lank. Rama had no way to get to Sita so he convinces the gods to build a land bridge to Lanka. Ravana, a demon king, deceives Sita into believing Rama has been killed. Rama then reaches the island and attacks and Sita discovers that she had been deceived.

This story is obviously extremely loosely based on Rama Attacks, but I wanted to tell the story from a different perspective. From Rama's perspective building a bridge to Lanka seemed impossible, but to the gods it was a simple task. I think it is important to remember your perspective on everything you see and remember that everything is not always as it seems.

Ants, although this is true of any insect, seem so tiny to us, but the ants don't know they're small. From their perspective they are normal sized and you are gigantic. From the perspective of the ant a little river seems like an ocean, but from your perspective you could just walk across with minimal effort.

The focus of our story is obviously the bridge. Almost none of the rest of the details are the same. I told the story that way intentionally because I think it's easy to gloss over the fact that a giant bridge was built to an island and the bridge was made of land! That is significant and I think deserves a story of its own. Also it's fascinating to me that from satellite images you can still see land that's under water that one could surmise is Rama's bridge. Maybe long ago it really was a bridge from India to Sri Lanka.