"Just look at them running around."

The two children knelt on the ground, watching the ants scurrying across the paving. From above, it looked like chaos: the ants rushing back and forth, seemingly at random. Occasionally, one of the ants would grab something in its jaws - a grain of sand, a seed - then spin around and rush back to where it had come from. Otherwise, there seemed to be no organisation governing the insects.

"I wonder what they'd do if they got something really big?"

"Like what?"

One of the children rummaged in a pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar. The bar's wrapper was scuffed and wrinkled, with half the ink rubbed away from long contact with the fabric of the pocket. Long streaks of silver could be seen where the paper had cracked and come away.

"How about this?"

"Cool!"

The child placed the wrapped confectionery on the ground, in one of the numerous ant trails. The ants swarmed against the chocolate bar, running along the sides to get past the obstacle. A few of them scurried half-heartedly across the top of the bar, then ran off to join the others. Otherwise, the ants carried on their way, oblivious to the food inside.

"Bo-oring. Ants are stupid."

"Maybe they don't know it's food."

The child picked up the bar and unwrapped it, shredding the paper and exposing the sweet chocolate below. Streaks of warm, brown goo adhered to the paper, softened by the heat from its owner's body. Then the chocolate was placed back on the ant trail. For a minute the ants behaved as before - a few climbing desultorily over the confectionery, the rest treating it as if it was just a rock. Then, as if some signal had been received and processed, the ants began to swarm. They pooled around the chocolate, darting toward it and away, each ant carrying a morsel of the candy with it. Both of the children watched, fascinated as the ants covered the chocolate in black carapaces.

"That's gross."

"Yeah."

"Let's kill 'em."

"Yeah!"

The children stood up and raised their feet, bringing their shoes down on the chocolate bar and the ants feasting on it. In a fit of disgust and glee they destroyed the bar, reducing it to a pulp and scattering it and the ants across the ground. Then, their emotion spent, the children ran away, laughing and shouting.

A few minutes later, the ants had returned to harvest what was left.