The Bees
Swarms
of bees, bees everywhere, swarming my nose, picking at my hair and eyes. It’s
been like this forever. Some say it’s because of spring. I’ve heard people at
the market claim the bees are a scourge sent by God to punish us for our sins.
But sitting in my apartment, with the sun so low I can hardly see the
silhouette of my own hand, all I hear is their ever present buzzing, and I
think, what are my sins?
Why are you doing this to me? I screamed from the rooftop of our apartment,
where we had sat so many times. It had been our apartment, until he screwed her
in my bed. Who the fuck are you, anyway? I screamed again, wanting nothing more
than for him to hold me and tell me he’d meant none of it. His eyes were black
chasms, and I knew at once, the bees had devoured them. You knew it was over,
he told me. You can’t run with me to that precipice, and then not jump off. I
just won’t climb back up there for you. I can’t. He was referring of course, to
that damn ring I’d given back. I’d given it back with a black hole in my
stomach that I would later fall into. I would have screamed, except the bees
would have followed the darkness, and then I would have become the hive.
Tell me, he would later say, tell me why you ever wanted me back after what I
did to you. We were talking again, for the moment at least. At the time I had
no words to tell him, but I kept thinking of a bird sitting on her perch with
the door to her cage wide open, but with bees swarming just beyond the bars.
A year later, we met for lunch every Wednesday. We thought then, as most people
did, that the bees had gone. We went to restaurants, on hikes in the cool
autumn air, and even though I ached to feel the comfort of his hand on my skin,
I realize now that comfort never existed because the brush of his hand sent my
skin crawling. The hive hadn’t gone; it encompassed us. I didn’t meet him the
next Wednesday, knowing if I did, the bees would eat me alive.
It’s been six years since those Wednesdays, and still I have dreams of him with
hives in his eyes. Sometimes, I jump on his back, throw a punch, shake his head
to loosen the hive, so I can see the exact color of his eyes, as they used to
be; only I’m paralyzed, like a bee trapped in water. Other times, the dreams
are kind, and we talk about my day or his, but always when I speak, a single
bee, sometimes more, flies from my mouth, and I know regardless of how or what
I tried, now I am the hive, and the bees will never leave.
Sara
Gunderson 2009
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