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Timothy Raymond
House of Bees
The house is full of bees. They live in the walls where everything
is dry. The whole place smells like honey and love. Even if I could
get through the walls and into the nests, I wouldn’t do it. Those
nests have been here longer than I have.
A man is coming all the way out here to take a look at the house. He
said on the phone that he is from the city and that he needs to make
sure the house is safe. Of course the house is safe, but I don’t
believe he’ll be convinced. He’ll worry about the neighbors and
about the foundation of the house. About me, he will worry. If the
bees have not settled for the evening by the time the man arrives,
I’m not answering the door.
For a year I have lived in the house of bees. It was my birthright.
My parents bought the house years before while they still lived in
another state. They bought it as a vacation spot. Then they never
used it. When they died, they left it to me, and only then did any
of us actually come out to relax. That person was me. In the house I
found the bees. The first one to land on my skin didn’t sting me,
even though I made a startled move.
I took it as a sign.
I relaxed in that house.
Once I brought Jill to the place, but she didn’t like it. It was she
who probably informed the man from the city.
She got stung while she was here. Her night was fitful. In the
morning she told me about the dreams she had had. She saw in her
dreams that the bees had stung her one by one until she was
immobile, and then they carried her out the window.
Jill hasn’t come back yet. I don’t mind. I’ve got something else.
I don’t know when the man is coming exactly. But I sit on the couch
in the living room and listen to the hum in the walls. Here’s what
you do: sit on that couch and feel the hearts fluttering all around
you. Slow your breathing until your heartbeats sync with theirs.
Feel the distance between here and there slip lightly away.
The man will say that the house is dangerous to others. The
neighbors have never complained to me, not since I’ve been here.
Then he’ll say it could collapse on me.
To which I’ll say, “And what, bury me in honey?”
See, I never told Jill, but I have a similar dream when I’m sleeping
near the bees. In hers she is taken away by them. In mine, I am
simply flying.
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