There was one bee on the ground. The bee was not flying. The bee did want something, however. Luke once met this girl. Autumn, actually met him. During his first day of class he noticed her, as she was in the class next to him. He noticed her red hair, and her larger pants. He also noticed her face, and had always wanted to see a face like that. Though it was mind-blowing at the time, it was also the first class for his new college career, so he quickly forgot. Eventually the face faded away, as he was noticing thousands upon thousands of new faces every day. There is not one of the ten thousand of the faces on this campus that he has seen before. Each of them held similar characteristics of people he knew (e.g. Devin’s face, Robert’s voice, Eric’s hair, Beth’s mouth), but none of them added up to what he already knew. Faces came and went.
Once, on his way to art class, the girl whom he first noticed approached him. “Do you have the time?” she asked. “Yes I do” he said as he looked at his watch a bit too confidently. “It is Twelve-Forty.” “Do you go to parties?” she smiled up at him. “Like raves?” he stuttered out, trying not to be a dork, but failing completely. “Ya..sometimes..” he spurted out, trying to half lie (as he had never been to anything like that before, but knows enough to fake it, or so he thought). “What do you mean?” she asked, obviously his plan wasn’t making sense. He paused for a second, trying to make order of what he just gave her. She broke the silence with “Anyway, there’s a party tonight and some of us are carpooling, I wanted to know if you want to go.” “Sure!” spit out of his mouth. Just as quickly as the excitement flew in his body, it flew out. Yet another failure at being smooth about anything. “What’s your phone number” the now goddess asks. “well, its extension 1874, from the college number, whatever that is.” “Ok” she says, and then walks away. Shouldn’t she have written it down? he thinks. He heads on towards art class, as he is surely late now.
A random pretty girl had approached him, and asked for his phone number, what do you think he thought about for the year? Hoping to catch her again, he would go to class early and sit on the benches outside of the building. Seeing every face, and disapproving of every one that was not hers. The bench he sits at is black and that sort of mesh metal that seems to be popular on stairs. Next to the bench is a large tree that almost branches out into the bench. There are always bees playing and flying around the tree. Noticing this, he takes out his notepad and begins to draw the bees. The bees are all around him now, flying above his head, around his shoulders, but never landing. There are at least 10 bees flying around. He looks at the ground, after sketching the tree and the bees into his Art History notebook.
There is one bee on the ground. It is not flying. It is just walking towards his foot. The bee continues, as he wonders to himself what is going to happen when the bee reaches his foot. The bee arrives at his foot and he lifts his foot, and puts it behind it, not wanting to get in the bee’s way. The bee, however, turns around and begins heading for his foot again. The bee simply crawls its way along, all the legs are looking proper, and the wings do not appear damaged. He lifts his foot again, testing his new theory of the bee following him. The bee slowly turns around again, and inches towards his foot. He imagines that it is an older bee, but does not note any wrinkles. Why would bees have wrinkles? he laughs to himself as he imagines an old bee, walking on two legs, bent over, and holding a cane. Worrying about what the bee might do, or what might happen to the bee, he lifts his foot and places it behind it again. The bee, of course, turns around and continues its slow crawl. Class is to start in a few minutes and this girl has not shown up. He carefully sketches this crawling bee, tending to every last detail. He wants to capture what makes this bee different from all other bees. He says goodbye to the bee, and imagines a “goodbye Luke” in return from the bee. Walking off to class, he can’t help but feel as though the bee wanted something from him. Perhaps the bee wanted him to kill it, as it was in great pain. Perhaps the bee wanted him to save it, and place it on a tree branch. Perhaps the bee wanted to sting him, as a final “screw you” to the species that would eventually stomp on it. Perhaps the bee didn’t want anything, and just smelled his scent, and was heading towards it. Whatever the bee wanted, it didn’t get it, and Luke walks off to class.
Coming out of the class, he heads over to the bench, to see if the bee is still there. Not only is the bee not there, but its friends playing on the tree are also gone. He heads home, trying to forget about this girl, as she only causes him grief and worry, since she never called about the “party.” The bee actually takes his mind off of her for a while, and perhaps that is what the bee wanted.
