The Story of the Lone Ant and an Exile Queen

This is not a place for happy endings. Or any closure, really.

Once upon a time there was a queen ant in exile. No one served this queen, and it was shunned by all ants.

Until one day an ant who did not follow a line like other ants came in a quizzical manner, and found the exile queen. (It may be the equivalent of the manner of walking of a drunken or crazy man.)

Since that day on for all its life, the lone ant served the exiled queen. 

No one knew about this until the lone ant was noticed to have been walking, still haphazardly, but slower and slower than usual.

The busy ants who had their own lines and their own colonies said, the life of this lone ant is being drained from him as he devotes his time to the exile queen!

The said queen knew about this and soon noticed that the lone ant stopped coming back, though she did not know why. Perhaps the colonies have taken him in, perhaps he is dead or dying.

The exile queen felt guilt. There was nothing about her to make any ant stay. She belonged to no colony. The element that binds ants to their queen was not in her.

She knew the lone ant spent time with her out of his own volition. But it made her all the more regretful for it.

Uncruel, unmanipulative, unbinding, the time the lone ant spent with her was still the very period of time that drained the life out of him. By herself, she knew she was alright. The lone ant himself seemed to be bound to no one queen, perhaps he may have just as spent his life on any other queen, or perhaps he is transferring colonies even now.

Maybe she was worth it, or maybe she was only worth it because anyone could have been. Yet she still worried about the lone ant. It was the lone ant's decision, out of the lone ant's will.

But, its being a haphazard lone ant, she wondered if its reasoning was ever sound.

And if it wasn't sound, then, in a way, maybe his drained life could have been her fault?

Without a colony, she couldn't ask. Never seeing the lone ant again, she never knew.

Author's Note

This is poetic but did you think it was a poem?
Does this qualify as fiction for you? If no, what will qualify it?
What genre do you think should this be and why?
Look at the title. Should it be The-The-An? Or The-A-The? Or The-The-The? Or The-A-An? (Yes, it matters.) Why?

Originally from my FB page, Nook Of Ruth.