The Bear and the Bee
I live alongside a bear and a bee.
It can be terribly inconvenient at times. The bee I find more bearable; it just wants to protect me, aiming sharp stings at my fingertips when I reach for something new, something exposed or exciting. I feel its furry legs as it pads carefully along my collarbone, a sensation as constant as breathing, as the beat of my heart, which races so frantically when the bee approaches. It's a silent warning not to get too close, not to go too far, the stinger always posed over sensitive flesh. Sometimes, when I sit still too long, I feel the prod of the sharp tip against my neck, not deep enough to puncture, to hurt, but enough to force me to my feet and into action. At night, the bee buzzes in my ear, and I have no choice but to stay unblinkingly awake, letting the sound fill me. It doesn't want me to forget, after all. If I forget, I make the same mistakes again and again, so I have to remember. The bee understands that, so it buzzes away.
The bear, on the other hand, I don't understand at all. Some days, I awaken to a pressure on my chest, far heavier than the bee. The bear lies on top of me, its fur pressing me into the bed, smothering me until I'm gasping for breath, unable to move, to escape. Other days, the bear is nowhere to be seen when I wake up, and I stretch, yawn, rise, but I can hear its wet, growling breaths just out of sight. I go about my day cautiously, waiting for the inevitable moment when the bear will spring from the shadows and slam me to the ground, whatever activity I was doing forgotten as I abandon all thought but that of continuing to draw breath. At times the bear is angry, baring sharp teeth at me, at everyone. It frightens me. Other times, it's sad in the way only an animal can be, eyes staring blankly, light gone from them. I want to feel sympathy for it. I do. But all I feel is apathy.
I want to hate the bear and the bee. I want to. I try to hate them, but I can't, because I understand them. I understand the anxiety of new things, of staying still. I understand the depression that weighs heavy upon you like a living thing, that growls when threatened, that bares its fangs at others even as it desperately wishes to be loved. The bear, the bee, and I have become unwilling friends, comrades. Sometimes, when the bear rumbles deep in its chest, I stroke its wiry fur, and its breathing evens out. Sometimes, when the bee buzzes about my head in a panic, I offer it sugar water, and it calms for a bit.
I guess we're in this together, after all.
aftermath
aftermath of glory reigns, to
brittle shards of shattered chains,
cold and shallow, marble view,
dull and withered,
ethereal now subdued,
forever more in flames and fury,
grave mistakes and unknown misery,
hailstorms rain apathic words of
icy dismissal, insincere shame,
just a little, not an issue,
keep waiting, one day, maybe
light will reach the stars again,
maybe the world will shine,
not with war or strife
or instability, just
peace and prosperity, a
quiet rain, a little drizzle, where
rivers calm into little
streams of hidden thoughts, but the
tsunami rolls, covering the sun with
umber skies, wispy clouds with
vibrant glows of carnelian gold, and
whirling embers reduce it all to a
xeriscape of smoldering ruins
yeilding empty, broken stains, a
zion slipping through the smoke and pain
Nevermore
Flying around a dusky sky, I spot a human-house with a shiny object inside.
Perfect, a new addition to my collection.
I glide through the square opening, eyes on a golden stick with a feather (like mine?) attached to it. Just as I land on the wooden surface it lies on, a man enters the room. I squawk in annoyance, retreating to the entrance’s edge.
He glares back at me, taking the tool and dipping it in a glass container with a feather-black liquid inside. Paying no more attention to me, he then produces a white, flattened strip of wood and begins scratching the object’s point across it.
I watch closely as the black water collected by the stick is focused on a metallic tip, tracing out an unknown alphabet.
As soon as he had begun, the man stops. Glances with gloomy eyes from the top of the room, to outside, then to me.
He arcs his mouth downwards, deep in thought.
“Nevermore, nevermore...” he seems to be repeating what he had scrawled, as if searching for more to it.
What an interesting sound, I ponder what such a word could mean in my tongue.
I decide to echo it: “Nevermore!” I caw to him.
He drops the golden tool and stares at me. Is that fear in his eyes? A man, afraid of a bird?! How fun!
“Nevermore,” I continue, gleefully tapping my talons on the frame of the entrance.
Those wing-black eyes of his spark with something else, and before I can process it, he is back to etching black on white.
Inspiration, I realize as he straightens his legs and rushes out the room, wielding the writing and a contained light. Did I help him get an idea?
I would later learn that, by repeating his speech in the dead of night, that I had done something special for him and many other humans.
(And I got the shiny stick; a price for my assistance, of course.)