ABSTRACT
The image "as if ants are running through my chest" can only be understood with the logic of metaphor. It is common sense, of course, that ants cannot crawl around someone's body. Ants move in and across the earth, not through a person's body. The bodily sensation of tiny electric shocks, a crawling, swarming, and itchy feeling, is compared to ants crawling across the earth. The movements of a column of ants are compared to a prickling movement in the chest, on the basis of shared characteristics. Abduction is a process of reasoning that creates a new insight from a recognisable similarity between two or more different situations. Human beings and grass share the characteristic of mortality and are therefore similar, and may be compared to one another. The Dutch comedian Andre van Duin has a sketch in which he presents a good example of the logic of abduction.
