The bees always came to him at night. He had been scared of them as a child, when his father had kept them; low whirring wings, anger set in gold. His father had been ashamed that he had no interest in them. That’s when the nightmares started — he could always feel the bees crawling under his skin — and since his father’s death they’d come to him more often. That night, one month on from the funeral, was the worst.
He was in a meadow filled with corn and sunshine. A thin line of black cloud smudged the horizon. He was hungry for the faintest whisper of air but only the sun pulsated down upon him. Harsh, demanding. He began to walk, tall tendrils of corn brushing against his fingers, soothing them.
The black cloud rose and he became aware of a low moaning. He couldn’t tell where the noise came from. It might even have been his own voice, speaking to him of something he couldn’t yet name. When he glanced around, trying to sense where the danger lay, the cloud was already rushing upon him.
He started to run. A heavy wind sprang up and forced him backwards, although he struggled against it. Darkness swept over his body and it was at that moment that the corn around him began to swell and vibrate. First the ears of grain split open, long strands breaking through into elongated feelers, then on the other side hooked gauze floated free.
He knew by then what they would become.
Even so he watched, unable to look away, as the feelers consolidated into legs, six apiece, the rear pair dotted with stiff hairs and the front slotted for cleaning. The gauze patterned itself into four wings, hooked together for flight. Each corn fruit became a bee, thousands of them, their five eyes watching him. He was no longer the observer, but the observed. The field where a heartbeat ago he’d felt he might almost achieve a kind of peace became instead a sea of threat, billowing out in honeyed hatred around him.
He opened his mouth to scream, but found his tongue tasted venom and the sting of fear drew blood. Then he was falling, falling into the deadly golden embrace and could no longer breathe at all.
When he woke, drenched with sweat, the familiar bedclothes lay crumpled at his feet. He blinked upwards into the darkness and the silence, his heart a racing staccato.
It took him a while to gain the courage to get up. On the faded blue rug at his bedside he found one small bee, its body crushed and burnt as if destroyed by fire. Damping down all thought, he smothered the deadly corpse in tissues and padded to the kitchen to dispose of the tiny bundle. That done, he leant against the sink as the dawn drifted into day, feeling the chill enamel on his trembling skin and trying not to think of his father.
He had spent a lifetime trying to do that, but some things could not be forgotten.
Anne Brooke is the author of seven novels, numerous short stories and poems. She has been shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Novel Award and the Asham Award for Women Writers. Her three crime novels, Maloney’s Law, A Dangerous Man and Thorn in the Flesh are available from Amazon. Her work is represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency and she is a closet birdwatcher. More information can be found at www.annebrooke.com and she also keeps a terrifyingly honest journal at http://annebrooke.blogspot.com.
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21 Responses to “NIGHT BEES • by Anne Brooke”
Comments
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March 29th, 2009 at 12:15 am
More of a horror story than a surreal story – except at the end.
Shorter sentences in the dream sequence would have made it more exciting / horrifying.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Interesting piece. I wanted to like it more than I did. Kept stumbling over “almost there” sentences. Felt like it needed a final polish.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Could be called horror. Could be magic realism. Could be slipstream. Whatever the genre, it’s pure genius. The symbolism is outstanding. I love the use of the meadow and the black cloud and what they represented. The dead bee at the end is perfect. I read it twice. I might read it again later.
March 29th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Excellent writing, stirring imagery, a story of a boy who cannot find an interest in his father’s interest, beekeeping. Ashamed of his father’s shame in him, he tries not to think of his father instead of working through in his mind the full roundness of his father’s departed being. The real strength of this story is the beautifully developed imagery of the boy’s frightening dream which the reader responds to with the tensions of fearful adventure.
March 29th, 2009 at 7:43 am
I’m not sure which genre this fits into either, but it doesn’t matter that it can’t be categorized. This is extremely well written and the dream is terrifying. You can feel and understand his fear. There is such a sadness at the end though, and you wonder if he’ll ever be able to work through all the conflict in the feelings for his father. Not to get too psychological about it, but this one stays with you. Well done.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Thanks, everyone – so glad it’s stayed with you. It gave me nightmares for sure! I do see what you mean about those long sentences though, Paul – something I always end up doing, darnit, as … um … you can tell from this one!…
Axxx
March 29th, 2009 at 9:34 am
[...] flash fiction piece, Night Bees, is now up at Every Day Fiction and can be found here. Hope you enjoy it and do feel free to leave a [...]
March 29th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I love, “he was falling, falling into the deadly golden embrace…”. This is quite a chilling story. It’s so difficult to get over the guilt, whether justified or not, of disappointing our fathers; not living up to their expectations. Haunting.
March 29th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Some stunning prose!
March 29th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Horror? I don’t think so. It’s a dream. A bad dream, no doubt, but there’s no stake for a character in a dream unless he either doesn’t wake up from it or realizes it’s not a dream, but a new reality. It is next to impossible to comment on the writing in the dream scenes since whatever peculiarity you might point out can be chalked up to it being “just a dream.”
Examples:
“He was hungry for the faintest whisper of air” Really? Was he in a vacuum or perhaps he was longing for a wind/breeze/zephyr/pick your own.
“He began to walk, tall tendrils of corn brushing against his fingers, soothing them.”
What is a tendril of corn? There’s no such thing. Tendrils are stemlike structures which twining plants attach themselves to an object for support. Corn does not have these. Google “corn tendril” if you don’t belive me. It returns 7 results, not one of them having to do with the actual corn plant. Perhaps in it’s most juvenile stage you might call the shoot a “tendril”, but then it wouldn’t be very tall, and not something you’d brush with your hands as you walked.
But that’s the problem with a dream, any of it can be true. Even if it doesn’t make any sense.
March 29th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I got to you late Anne but I enjoyed this very much X
March 29th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Well written dreamscape, Anne.
–dj
March 29th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Powerfully told surreal story. Thanks Anne.
March 29th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Thanks, all! I shall be worrying about that dang corn now though, John!
Axxx
March 30th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Excellent. Beautiful descriptions despite the enfolding terror.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:19 am
A cornfield turning into menacing bees…Rod Serling would’ve loved this!
March 30th, 2009 at 3:44 am
I always enjoy something in your writing. This made me fidget uncomfortably. My own comment is that if you wanted to you could write this as a longer story giving the reader a truly dark telling of the horror in this man’s psyche but that’s the problem with flash-length pieces — trying to keep them concise. It definitely made me squirm.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Thanks, Jennifer, Sharon & Sharon! And yes, I think I might make it into a longer piece one day – when I drum up the courage!!
Hugs, all
Axxx
March 30th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Great imagery with real depth. Loved this.
Cheers
Mark
March 30th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Beautifully constructed. A very classy story. I liked the last line about the protagonist’s father. (We certainly seem to be giving Dads a hard time of recently…)
July 24th, 2009 at 2:28 am
Thanks, both – much appreciated!
Axxx