Copyright © 2007 James Cheetham
All rights reserved, Wild Child Publishing.
To be witness to a perfect sound. To grasp at one single, solitary moment of absolute perfection. Our birth, and perhaps our death. Two seconds of perpetual individualism wrapped in precision, provided by nature. Sweet those moments are. Sweet as honey on one's tongue.
The beekeeper longed for either. To be born again, or to die. His mind now softened by generations, he could no longer draw a line between the two. Instead, he traveled solo through time and space. His memories, tapestries of trial and error. His mournful stare resting on nothing particular anymore. In a moment lost, yet not so long ago, the beekeeper was life itself, in all its pleasure and pain. He was here, of this earth, bonded by temperament, and provoked each morning by the subtle warmth of the sun upon his youthful face.
In this, his past life, he learned in short time that trust was universal. His netting, his hat, his gloves permanent fixtures on a wooden coat rack upon the porch. The subjects and their hum, they softened with time, as did he. Of yellow and black, of contrast to blue and the sky that painted their background, they were slaves to their dance, bearers of the sweetest fruit as they sang their instinctual song. They were a whole in some ways. A lot like him--one single entity. The tribe of stingers and pollen-swollen legs acted as one, a unison with which the human race would never come to terms. It would be our downfall, the beekeeper concluded, a passing thought ripped from the void and slammed back again, a pain in the back of his skull. That was why, no matter how we lived our lives, we died alone and scared in the end.
"It's time," the Beekeeper said and struggled to raise his chin.
A shadow moved across his room and acknowledged him with a sigh. It was enough for him, his strength stolen along with his youth, the bitterness he thought settled long ago. Visions drifted between the soft fragrance of fresh grass and linen. He ran between the white sheets Mother left on the line and magnificent clouds he was certain were born the very day he inhaled that first cusp of mortal air. Substance was life at tender age and false assumption. Such security, and so far from Death's reach was childhood. So sensuous, and how very misleading it was to run with bones still soft and unbreakable.
"I was young," he whispered to the shadow.
The shadow knew this was true. The shadow glanced at the aged and faded photos, dust-covered and unsettling. The circle of life everywhere. The carcass of a mounted snow owl, and the bitter scent of blackened fruit still in view upon the kitchen table. She was well-versed in this cycle and so sure now that the beekeeper was nearing the one thing equal to his first gasp of life giving air; his last would come before sundown. She brought him a cup of water, and he sipped at it mercilessly. She took the cup from his cracked lips, and a single drop rolled down his coffee-colored skin to dangle perpetually from white stubble, his tongue still savoring the cool paradox of his dying mouth.
"I was young..."
"I know you were," the shadow said. The sun outside gave clue to her somber face, lost as quickly in the moment. She went to the sink and dampened a cloth under cold running water.
The beekeeper closed his eyes. The shadow could not understand. A lifetime of domination over tribes, they crawled upon his arms, hovered around his ears. It took a certain mastery to avoid insanity when his subjects attempted entry. A gentle sway of a hand, and they returned to their purpose, sticky honey between thick worker fingers. He was a genteel. Cautious and assertive, he harvested his subject's accretion, and in return, they grew in strength, embraced their instinct, and accepted him amidst their steady hum. And he worked them like he worked himself. Expecting nothing less than perfection, he toiled until his youth was spent and then beyond. Then pain. Cramps crawled in his hands and up in his arms, screaming, as the beekeeper endured, and his subjects maintained the crops.
"They turned on me."