Bees in the AirA Story by Chadvonswan 7:48 AM It was Sunday and in the sink in the kitchen the chicken laid its third egg. Momma collected it in her wooden basket with the other two and opened the fridge and set it inside. I watched her looking above the tip of the table, the steam rising from the scrambled eggs on the plate next to the crisped crimson bacon. Momma busied herself spreading butter on the toast and then set it in front of me, telling me to eat up or I'll never get strong enough to fly away. She said I was a chicken, and I believed her. It was six o'clock in the morning and we waited for the sun.
Bathing in the tub I screamed with delight and splashed sour bubbles up into the air until they floated to the rotted ceiling and stayed up there. Momma came in and opened the toilet seat and Daisy the cat jumped out in ashamed apprehension and ran out soaked into the hallway. She laughed and said something about Daisy to me and I remember laughing too. I splashed more bubbles up into the air and they drifted to the ceiling. Now that I think about it that was probably why the ceiling was rotted, an overexposure of soapy bubbles. It was six thirty in the morning.
Outside in the barn the horses moaned in fear of the coming storm. I remember going outside and gazing at the sky. Far off in the distance there was a darkness where there should have been light. But in the east where the sun had rose there was no sun but only darkness, and in the west where there should have been gloom there was instead a rosy hue behind the clouds. The wind ruffled my hair and I went in the barn and tried to calm the horses down, tossing carrots into each of their stables. The horses ignored the carrots and I remember the way their eyes bulged out of their long skulls with some odd fear. Then I thought of why Daisy was in the toilet bowel.
Pa was out in the pineapple fields first thing in the morning. I found him kneeling down in the dark, moist soil and tugging at the weeds that grew around the fruits. I remember telling him that Momma was mad because he missed breakfast. He looked at me and didn't say anything. Pa looked up at the sky and I remember he looked nervous, as if he thought the rain was gonna wash away the pineapples. He studied the sky standing before me for a while and he told me to go back in the house and get his binoculars. I had asked him what he wanted them for but he turned and gave me a look over his shoulder that said shut up and listen to me. I went in the house and into Pa's desk and opened drawers looking for the binoculars. Papers and envelopes and pens and more papers. In the middle drawer there was an old golden pocket watch that I had never seen before and behind them Pa's military binoculars. I picked up the watch and studied it with some curiosity, I remember being fascinated with it, and I took it out of the shadowed drawer and stuck it in my pocket. I then took the binoculars out to Pa and he took them without saying anything and aimed them toward the east and winced a great deal into them, like he was looking for heaven. It was seven o'clock in the morning.
When the sun finally came out the air smelled of a warm, acrid odor, I never really could say what it smelled like, but it was definitely warm. I was outside walking along the fence that bordered our property from the outside. Daisy was following me and when I would pet her I felt a vague trace of piss in her fur. At the end of our property was a large oak tree, a thick trunk with the scars of time running up into its branches. I would stand and stare up at its structure, complex yet beautiful and impossible to comprehend its extraordinary existence. I proceeded to climb the tree like I had done a thousand times and perched myself at the top where I had hammed a board in between to branches to sit on. I had Pa's binoculars hanging around my neck and I made myself comfortable on the board. Looking down I remember seeing Daisy staring up at me and digging her nails into the rough surface of the trunk, stretching them and loosening them for her next kill. It was seven twenty five in the morning.
From up in the tree I could see for miles. The valleys and the mountains and the harbor a couple miles away. The vast ships were anchored and I would stare at them through the binoculars and try to find a naval officer. My older brother Patrick was down there and I would always try to find him but I never did spot him. The only thing I could really see down by the harbor were all those damn pine trees that lay scattered amok the beach. I remember I had the pocket watch in my pants pocket and I took it out and opened it and read the time. It was seven thirty in the morning.
Up in the tree it was cold because the wind was blowing right up the hill from the ocean and I had to wear two jackets, I remember. I remember the sun finally rising above the clouds and glaring into the binoculars and blinding me. I let go of the binoculars and let them hang around my neck. From where I was sitting, up in the old oak, I could think of my life from a different perspective. I was able to put myself literally in a higher position and think of my life and why I am here. I remember thinking of Patrick quite often. He never really seemed to be there. He was always gone. And even when Patrick was home on the farm he never really was there. He detached himself from our family and put himself in a higher authority. Just because he was a naval officer and he worked on a boat didn't make him better than us. Pa always was disgusted with Patrick's attitude. I remember the two of them arguing quite often. I think that was why Patrick left and joined the navy. He just got tired of my father.
I believe I was thinking of Patrick when it happened. I felt something shake the tree, before I heard the explosion. It all happened so fast. I thought for a second the volcano was erupting. I remember being terrified at the possibility of the volcano erupting; it was so close. I had the pocket watch in my hand and I remember the time, it was seven forty-eight, and when the second explosion sounded the watch fell from my hand and landed in the grass below. I wanted to climb down and get it, in fear of it getting broken and Pa getting mad at me, but then the third explosion rang out, and a forth and a fifth, and I remember grabbing the binoculars around my neck and peering through them and seeing all the bees.
I wanted to jump out of the tree right there, because I remember I was allergic to bees as a kid, but there were no bees, and I looked down at the harbor free of the binoculars and saw the dozens of airplanes propelling out of the sky, coming right out of the sun and crashing into the naval ships, dozens and dozens of planes, it seemed like it never ended, and then the siren sounded, it rang out over the harbor and up the mountains and into the farm, and the siren along with the crashes sounded like something out of a movie. The planes just kept coming and coming, they were falling out of the sky and I couldn't understand why this was happening, and I remember thinking of Patrick, he was down there but there was nothing I could have done. © 2014 ChadvonswanAuthor's Note
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ChadvonswanThe West, CAAboutCHADVONSWAN = MAX REAGAN [What's Write is Right] My book of short stories.. http://www.lulu.com/shop/max-reagan/thoughts- of-ink/paperback/product-22122339.html more..Writing
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