‘The trouble with bees (discounting the larger, extinction-level problem) is that one never quite knows where they’ll show up. The internet has allowed for an intermittent symbiosis to form between farmers and apiarists, the farmers appreciating the bees for their pollinating and the beekeepers playing an underhanded game of global chess with their queens.
For all that the Wayside is already chaotic, the shifting bee colonies add another layer of uncertainty to a tour that may already be fraught. One may have prepared bundled offerings of black catnip for the ashen specters of ‘The Immolated Kat Cirkus’ but to complete the tedious peace ritual for feline phantoms between boxes of nervous honey bees? Or to stumble upon a hive at the ‘The Undisclosed Peak’ while waiting for a glimpse of America’s secret second moon? Bees are happy to sting in the dark, reader, by moonlight, by daylight, in storm and sun. Bees are the postal service of the natural world, endangered, yes, but persistent even in the face of extinction.
And, like their honey, bees have a tendency to pick up on the local flavor.
It is good common sense to refrain from opening strange boxes or exploring ruined buildings, if for no other reason than for the minimal chance either currently houses bees. Much of what could be considered good common sense would suggest avoiding these destinations altogether. Whilst ignoring common sense, the author offers this piece of advice to the traveler: speak softly and carry epinephrine.’
Ah, stupid. I’m sure I’ve flipped by this little warning a hundred times and ignored it. Had I absorbed any of what it said I may have:
1. Ignored a moonlit field of mysterious boxes might portend.
2. Remained on-book, rather than thinking I had somehow discovered a Wayside oddity not already covered inside.
3. Done a better job washing the corn syrup from myself.
Hector is worse than me in most of these regards. He moves through the field with blithe abandon and doesn’t seem to mind that his skin crawls with insects. Could be that the rabbit and the bees understand neither is a threat to the other. Could be that his skin is thick enough that he doesn’t notice or that the stingers pose no threat at all.
I don’t consider myself thin-skinned, exactly, but compared to the tan rabbit I am not so ready to go about my business when I understand what all the itching is. Something instinctual (or, perhaps, something layered-in by cartoon tropes) warns that bee stings are a bit like dominoes- there is either peace or disaster. I move slowly and in the moonlight I confirm that the bees have mostly snuck under my sleeves and the cuffs of my jeans to get at the corn syrup from North Dakota. It seems reasonable to assume they’ll leave once the residue is licked, chewed, or otherwise mandibled away.
It’s a long process- an evening I spend standing stock-still, trespassing in a moonlit field. By sunrise, the bees have mostly dissipated and those that remain are happy enough to be brushed away by a gentle hand. Hector has fallen asleep between my feet and he kicks fitfully when I gather him from the dewy grass. Out of the corner of my eye a figure moves, a second scarecrow thawed in the sun.
The woman observes me from across the field and I stare back at her, the each of us wondering whether it would be therapeutic to discuss our misadventure or if we’d rather pretend it never happened. She chooses the latter, with a shrug, and then winces at something underneath her jacket- a bee sting, I guess.
I imagine her eyes widen. I imagine a pulse of adrenaline to her stiff legs. I imagine because I’m too busy running, myself, Hector an unwieldly football in my arms.
-traveler
