I watched it happen as if it played out in slow motion. The bee landed on my wrist and, unprovoked, drove its abdomen down into my skin. The tiny black barb of its stinger hooked into my flesh. The bee took off and its barb stayed stuck in me, like a harpoon, and the harpoon’s rope was a string of sticky innards that stretched out from the bee’s backside until it stretched taut and snapped.
“Fuck” I said. I grit my teeth.
Instantly the sting began to tingle, then burn. Great, I thought, at least I’m not allergic. I cursed the bee. I was tending my garden and had done nothing to invoke its wrath. I drove the head of my trowel into the dirt and stood up, dusting off my pants. I walked inside and ran cool water over the sting. Grabbing a pair of tweezers from the bathroom, I carefully pulled the tiny black barb free and dropped it in the toilet.
It stung for a while, as expected. But in a couple hours time, the red welt had spread out to the size of a dime and swelled up like a hillock. My whole hand was beginning to tingle by dinnertime. By bedtime, it had spread up my forearm. Pins and needles, as if the whole limb were asleep.
I didn’t think much of it. It was just a bee sting. I’d had them before. But this one was fierce. As I lay in bed I had to jerk the comforter off of me because I was sweating. Profusely. My head had a dull ache. I got up and popped a few aspirin. Staring into the mirror, my vision began to blur. I must have been more tired than I thought. I lay back under my thin sheet with the ceiling fan spun on high and I sunk into a fitful sleep.
Let me try to sum up my dream. I found myself in complete darkness. From all around me came a faint thrumming sound. Like a heartbeat. The bass of it reverberated in my chest. It was at once unsettling and comforting. I stumbled through the darkness, reaching out ahead of me to feel my way blindly. My hands pressed against a curved surface, slick with sticky ooze. The air smelled of sweat and decay. Whatever my hands were pushed against was pulsating in the same rhythm as the all-encompassing thrumming around me. Buh-bum. Buh-bum.
Another sound to my left: a wet sound, like someone stirring a pot of macaroni. Then a thud as something hit the ground. It began to cry softly in the dark.
“You will make a fine queen” a husky, female voice cooed into my ear.
I gasped and leapt back, my hands peeling away from the sticky surface with globs of what felt like mucus hanging down from my wrists. The wet sliding sound repeated, followed by another thud against the floor. Buh-bum.
“Soon you’ll provide life for the whole colony” the voice rasped.
“What is this?” I shouted.
I was sweating bullets. My clothes stuck to my skin as they became drenched. I turned to run and made it a few feet before the ground beneath me rose up in a slope. The floor was slick and soon the grade became too steep until I was clawing my way up the sloping floor on all fours. I lost my footing, collapsed onto the gunk-slathered ground, and slid back into the belly of the room. Buh-bum. Buh-hum.
My gut was beginning to swell. My ankles, too. My sinuses were clogged and something thick and fuzzy was caught in my throat. Struggling to breathe, I writhed on the floor, alternating between arching my back and curling into a ball. My tear ducts began to tickle. There was immense pressure under my eyelids. Something was pulling itself free through the corners of my eyes. Tiny legs crawled across the bridge of my nose and there was an immense strain on my tear ducts as they stretched. I tried to groan, but the lump in my throat caused me to cough. The mass dislodged and my mouth was filled with fluff and prickly feet scurrying along the insides of my cheeks. Bees were crawling over my teeth, sloshing through the spit on my tongue, and flying off my lips. My stomach had distended to the size of a beach ball. I yanked my shirt up and pressed my fingertips against my abdomen, feeling thousands of bodies squirming just under the skin. Buh-bum.
“Can you feel them growing inside of you?”
Those were the last words that echoed in the dark before I woke up, my sheet soaked with perspiration and the morning sun beaming down across me. I had been awoken by a steady tapping sound against my bedroom window. I looked over and saw a single bumblebee buzzing outside, throwing itself against the window over and over. I can’t place why, but I was drawn to it and paced slowly to the windowsill. I pressed my palm against the glass.
“FEED!” the word shot through my psyche. I stumbled away from the window and collapsed back onto the mattress.
Rubbing my hand on my stomach, I began to feel queasy as thoughts of the dream came back to me. As a man, the thought of giving mass-birth to anything made me squirm. Too many bees on the mind, I thought, as I dressed and headed down to the kitchen. The sting on my wrist had grown larger. The red welt stuck up three-quarters of an inch. It throbbed.
I tried to go about the day as usual, dropping a couple pieces of bread in the toaster and boiling water for my morning tea. The teapot whistled and I poured the boiling water over a teabag. Reaching into the cabinet, I grabbed the plastic squeeze-bottle of honey and absent-mindedly squirted it into my tea. My attention was snared by the sound of tapping on my kitchen window. I looked up. Again, there was a bee beating itself against the glass, trying to fly in. But this time, there wasn’t just one bee, but dozens. A whole circus of them flitted through the air, throwing themselves against the window pane.
I lifted my tea cup to my lips as I watched, but found that I had lifted the wrong hand. Instead of tea, I was drinking orange blossom honey straight from the bottle. Rather than spit it up, though, I let the sweet goo cascade over my tongue. Pure heaven. The warm ooze seeped down my throat, but I couldn’t bring myself to swallow. I wanted to savor the sweet flavor. My tongue swirled in my mouth and swiped across my lips.
My trance was broken only by the jolt of the toaster. Shaking my head, I grabbed the two slices of toast and pried open the refrigerator. Strawberry or grape jelly, I wondered. But a primal hunger tugged at my thoughts. I slammed the refrigerator shut and dashed back across the tile floor.
Honey. Spoonfuls of it. A glimmering, golden flow of it. Spread from corner to corner of the toast. I set upon the sticky substance like a wild animal, hardly chewing as I scarfed it down. What unfolded next, I have to admit, I’m too embarrassed to share. It was… animalistic. It was uncouth. Like something out of a nature documentary.
Fifteen minutes later, though, I was standing in my bathroom. Lights off. No illumination save the pale blue glow of my phone screen. I gazed at my reflection in the mirror with blank eyes. Mesmerized, I lifted my hand slowly to my chin. My palm was overflowing with honey. I didn’t blink. Didn’t move a muscle as I put my hand against my forehead and dragged it down my face. Warm honey smeared across my eyebrows, my nose, my cheeks, my lips. Sweet honey dripped from my chin. I was shirtless. My hand, still tacky with sugar, began to caress my stomach. The sting on my wrist throbbed and burned. I was sweating heavily. A headache rattled my skull. My breathing was shallow.
What is happening to me?
I walked out of the bathroom and into the living room. Where I expected to be greeted by the mid-morning sun, I instead found myself in darkness. All three windows around the room were blotted out by a sheet of wriggling, black bodies. Bees. Hundreds of them. They clung to the glass so thick that they left the room in shade.
What is happening to me?
The sting on my wrist was aflame with pain. My arm tingled up to the elbow. I had to get to the doctor. I held my phone up to my face and tapped 911 with my goop-slathered fingertips.
“911, what’s your emergency?” the dispatcher answered.
“Pollen” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“P-pollen” I stammered.
“Sir, are you having an allergic reaction?” the dispatcher asked.
“I need… I n-need pollen.”
“Sir? There’s a lot of background noise.”
I hung up. The collective buzzing of a thousand bees was driving into my skull. Every window was rattling with the hissing flitter of their wings. I grasped my head, honey hardening in my hair, and squeezed my temples. Outside. I had to get outside. I had to taste fresh air. I ran back to the kitchen and out the back door into my garden.
What is happening to me!
The scent of flowers overwhelmed me. The saccharine aroma was so strong that it overpowered my senses. The light of the sun was bright, burning, blinding white. I fell to my knees. My wrist screamed with pain. I could hardly breathe through the domineering scent of azaleas and hibiscus. I began to shudder violently. Looking at the dry dirt under my knees, I realized I was now sitting in a shadow. Above me, bees were swirling like a black cloud. The buzzing was so loud I swear it must have shook the Earth. I ripped a handful of flowers and grass out of the soil and scrambled to my feet, back to the safety of my kitchen. The kitchen, too, was pitch black from the squirming, black blanket that clouded the glass. I stuffed the dirty vegetation into my mouth and began to chew while I formulated a plan. The bitter taste of dirt and grub worms made me wretch, but I didn’t think to stop.
What the fuck is happening to me!
I sat at the kitchen table and stared at its glossy surface. The chewed-up mass of flowers fell from my mouth like a thick paste, my saliva forming it into one green lump. Unconsciously, my hands began to work into shaping it as I racked my brain for answers.
“BUILD!” the word roared through my brain.
Looking down, I realized what I was doing. I was molding the green, flowery gel into small hexagons. No. This wasn’t happening. I bolted up out of the chair and began to pace over the tile. I couldn’t hear myself think over the din of droning insects. I shut my eyes tight and brought up every memory I had of bees. Something must repel them. Something must subdue them. There has to be something!
Smoke.
Smoke!
Smoke would subdue them. I charged around the house in a frenzy, snatching up magazines and ripping pages out of books and crumbling newspaper and mail and flyers into wads. I heaped it all in the living room. Sheets. Towels. Clothes. Every flammable scrap I could find, I threw it all together until the pile was up to my knees. Then, I struck a match.
Flames roared in my living room and painted the ceiling black with soot. As the fires rose, I fetched a glass of water from the sink and splashed it around the edges of the growing inferno. Thick smoke sputtered out of the flames. The fire detector sang. Through the thickening haze, I watched as bees detached themselves from my windows one by one. The smoke filled the living room, crawled over the ceiling, and curled across the kitchen. I was free of the buzzing. I felt the heat of the fires lick at the red welt on my wrist. Sunlight was beginning to filter in through the thinning wall of insects stuck to the hot glass.
But I was choking. Perhaps I hadn’t thought this plan through. My eyes were watering and I coughed furiously. But I still felt relieved. And I still felt that great relief even as my vision blurred and my lungs ached and I collapsed onto the floor, losing consciousness.
I awoke in a hospital room. A clean, white room with not a bug in sight. Outside the door, a pair of nurses stood chatting. When I sat up and started to cough, they paid me no mind. I was hacking violently, my whole body shuddering with each cough. The taste of smoke and honey was stuck in my throat. I was shivering. I coughed. And coughed. And coughed. Until something came free in the back of my throat. From my mouth flew a saliva-covered bee. It landed atop the hospital blanket and lay still for a few seconds before its black wings stretched and it flew up to the ceiling. The urge to escape bristled within me. I grabbed the IV stuck into my forearm and yanked it free. I held the silver needle before my eyes.
The two nurses strolled into the room with a police officer in tow.
“STING!” the word erupted from deep in my subconscious.
Submitted August 15, 2015 at 02:19AM by AHarmonRights http://ift.tt/1JhLY6j nosleep
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