'Evan the Tiler' 'The Plains'

Abstract

A list and commentary on plains-country denizens might begin with the meat ant and its clay-pan mound, peppered by grains and beads of sand and stone, each entrance a departure point from an underground fortress and nursery with as many false walls and holding cells as there are main thoroughfares, back-roads, dead-ends, food larders and burial chambers surrounding a royal viewing box, the blind worker dying of exhaustion under a payload of road-kill offcuts, the soldier with a small arms projectile for a head and a pair of mandibles that work like medieval joinery.