The fall of the ant and the typewriter

The ant took it as a sign of his final downfall when he landed on the hard plastic of a maxed-out credit card. He had advanced more than thirty centimetres carrying an enormous crumble of sausage when a keratin force sent him flying into the air. At the highest point, he saw his childhood home deep within the confines of a brass Indian typewriter, and was momentarily engrossed in tiny memories. Though it was dark and at times prolifically noisy, he and his brothers loved clinging onto the typebars for the moments of their sudden deployment into the sweet carefree air. Food very often rained from the sky -- bread crumbs by the dozen, sesame seeds, and sometimes, even bits of ham or cheese. At night, they would climb all the way up to the rows of spaced out platforms and bathe in the oils and greases that seemed to be replenished every single day.

On his descent, his mind turned to his more recent predicament. Over the years, the typebars deployed less and less, and the rain became scarcer, until one day, their entire universe was boxed in vintage darkness. The ribbon in the middle of the colony eventually dried up. This was the beginning of scavenging, hard labour, misery and fatigue. Sausage, in particular, was so rare, that the ant had been particularly excited about his latest discovery—it was going to feed his entire clan for the next few months. Though five times his weight, the sausage felt light on his back as he ran faster than he had ever done.

Now on the plastic, the food supply was nowhere to be seen, and the ant limped to the space inside the embossed zero of the October expiry date.