Another story sample.

The Bees and the bees.

 

We stood in the water of the shallow end of the pool, our backs slick, and the water rolling off in beaded rivulets.  It was a particularly brutal summer scorcher when we decided to go swimming that day.  My cousin Justin and I were laughing merrily without hardly a care in the world.  But at that exact moment when I felt the water rolling down my neck and heat of the summer air brushing up against my face; I knew.  I knew that something had changed on some imperceptible level.  

There are meters or barometers that exist within us all that give us markers or indicators for things that we are not consciously aware, yet they guide our actions.  During that summer I was reading Carlos Castenada and his lessons about the Nagual were both fusing themselves into my thoughts and into my very spiritual fibers.  Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before my uncle found the book and threw it away, yelling about not tolerating “cultist trash” in his house.  My cousin looked devastated when he found the book in its final resting place in the living room garbage can.  Nothing uncle Samuel threw away ever came back from the trash.  Ever. 

It was because of these strange echoes and vibrations that those meters read that I knew I was going to walk into something terrible before I did.  I came home early from class that day when Justin was being severely beaten.  I rushed into my uncle’s den during that fateful August evening when I heard the sounds going on in the rooms nearby.  He stopped short when he saw me, something that saved a cousin’s life, and an uncle's freedom.  Despite the apparent luck, it forced a great deal of strain on the relationship between the three of us.  Justin felt humiliated, and Sam felt shameful.  We all wanted to blame the alcohol, but something more sinister seemed to be at play. 

The faint sounds of Justin splashing in the pool were almost faint pin drops compared to the angry hornet buzzing from above us.  How many of those insipid creatures were flying above us?  A lot, and they seemed to be circling from a larger distance in a strange oval pattern.  I wanted to tell Justin what was occurring, but a sort of disturbed fascination took precedent.  While I like being the water bearer in those situations, it was more obvious that Justin was slowly getting the message.  He has a terrible phobia of the creatures. No known allergy, just a horrid phobia. 

I was transfixed by the sort of unnatural dance that the creatures were sucked into, but Justin’s newfound awareness was not so innocuous.  I could hear the whimpers that uttered from his mouth louder than the sounds of the pool filter, louder than the sounds of maddening swarm of insectoid invaders, and even louder than my own heart which was pounding relentlessly.  Justin was deep in the throes of a panic attack, and my knowledge of treating such a condition are painfully limited.  My main plan of attack in those situations: Grab the meds and some water.   

I slowly pulled myself out of the pool and walked over the hot cement walkway toward Justin to get a closer look.  The hornets were locked at their current altitude, but the circle was getting larger and expanding in number of insects.  Occasional stragglers were buzzing off sideways for some reason, but their direction was hard to track.  Justin was turning a ghostly white as the color drained from him belying his normally tanned tone.  Mortal terror seemed like an understatement, and I had seen Justin in some terrible emotional states.  “Justin?”  I asked hoping that my voice would coax him into a response or somehow put some kind of sanity to the mania that was running rampant in the natural world. 

Unfortunately, I received no response from my cousin and was forced to try to keep talking to measure if this panic attack was worth a call to emergency services.  “I am going to grab some of your meds.  Okay?  Just hang tight and remember that they are just bugs.”  I really wanted to convince the both of us of that fact at that exact moment.  “Just bugs,” I kept repeating as I walked to the back porch in search of Justin’s medications.  The grass was extremely dry, and it had that sharp quality when it feels like prickers on your feet.  I hated that feeling and wished I had the time or the wherewithal to have grabbed my sandals.  

    “Just bugs," I was now mouthing wordlessly as I pulled open the back screen and entered the living room.  I had to make my way to the upstairs bathroom next to our room.  It was the medicine cabinet above the sink where my goal was hiding.  I think.  To be honest, this isn’t a regular occurrence, and Justin hasn’t had an episode in several months.  The last time was the night before Sam brutalized him for breaking his belt sander.  It was an honest accident, but Sam has a way of prioritizing consequence over intention.  I had to push the thought out of my head as I made my way up the stairs. 

    While rushing up the stairs I took a moment, as I usually do, to glance at the calendar as I ascended the staircase.  It is a calendar of various kinds of mushrooms hanging above the stairs that I gave me a strange pleasure to read.  Something about the artist's rendering of garden variety forest mushrooms seems like there is a rich story behind it.  I like seeing the stories in things.  It keeps things from seeming too simple or mundane.  Right now, this story was proof that another pool day is anything but another pool day.  I made it to the bathroom door and finally pulled at the knob.  The door was locked. 

    “Hey, I am taking a dump in here moron!” I could hear the surly response of Sam as I tried to pull the knob open.  “Sam!  Couldn’t you have just used the bathroom in your room instead of the guest bathroom upstairs instead?”  There was a moment where the only response was the sound of flatulence and an acrid smell of feces.  “I could have used the downstairs bathroom too!  But I picked this one.  So, screw you!”  He seemed extremely content with his reasoning, and I was at a loss as far as how to reach this guy.  I had to level with him.  “Look, Justin is having a bit of an episode outside and we really need his meds right now.”  There was another brief period of silence. 

    The bathroom door cracked open just a hair and the bottle of pills rolled out.  The wafting aroma that Sam coupled it with made this whole thing a labor of love for my cousin.  Sam really is a sick ticket.  I ran down the stairs grateful that there wasn’t more of a struggle with the negotiations with Sam.  I practically sprinted the rest of the way through the house and made it to the back sliding glass door.  I pull it, and the screen open, and running across the hot and sharp uncomfortable back lawn.   

    The sounds of hornet buzzing overhead were still menacing just as badly as ever.  It looked like the swarm had expanded in the sky but was now forming into individual rings.  It looked a bit like a bull's eye shape or concentric circles, and we were sort of in the middle of it.  Middle is a bit vague as the area still looked to be very large.  Maybe a football field or two?  It is an odd unit of measure but what are good units for such things? Besides, it was hard to gauge the size by the distance and by the fact that it was a hard picture to emotionally process.  A large space and a lot of insects seemed to be the proper answer. 

    Justin had not moved but he looked a lot less, well, in a state of complete horror.  I think the panic attack gave way to disturbed curiosity.  I personally feel like a person can run out of fear.  Like he can only watch something so scary before some kind of internal “fuse” blows and he is left fearless.  Justin made that leap and I was proud of him, or at least I wanted to be.  I shook the bottle of pills to get his attention.  He seemed lucid but disinterested in a medicated remedy for the situation.  “Jake. (that is me by the way) Do you ever get the feeling like there is something that needs to be communicated by a world that doesn’t speak our language?”  The question caught me off guard. 

    "Well...I think...” I tried to muster something either witty or profound and was left sounding like a bumbling fool to my younger cousin.  I think the experience was changing him.  “Other people speak other languages, and we know for certain that they are trying to communicate something even with no knowledge of what they are saying.” He paused like some well-respected scholar before continuing.  “If two people you never met before were speaking random gibberish too each other, both people not really knowing what the random words meant; would you know that they weren’t really conveying a message?”  Maybe my cousin is a well-respected scholar. 

    The hornets seemed to like what he said because their buzzing began to match a certain pitch then switch to another in unison.  It was like a high note then a low note.  Did it really constitute a response or agreement with Justin’s question?  The strangest thing that stuck with me was there was a clear answer.  Yes.  It was like the hornets agree, people know when some kind of idea or message is being transferred.  There are some kinds of intellectual stimuli that is moved when this process occurred, like a light switch in your brain.  Naturally, ironically, and to my utter astonishment, Justin began joining in with the chorus of buzzing. 

    This went on for a few moments with what few beads of water on me drying up.  The air started to clear and there was this strange pressure in my head being released, like air from a balloon.  This caused a strange diaspora of the hornets from the strange almost religious like congregation.  They must have communicated the message that they wanted to convey, and somehow my cousin was at the epicenter of the whole thing.  That is what my gut tells me.  Justin just looked at me and smiled.  I dropped his medication bottle in the grass with the oddest feeling that he wouldn’t be taking one, more than likely, ever again.