The Madness of Envious Bees - 1 of 2

A Story by Paris Hlad

The Madness of Envious Bees

A Portrait of the Fluke Extraordinaire

You may recall Andre De Foi’s provocative reference to an insect that does not promote Conqueror Worm’s goals unwittingly.[1] He promised that a “beautiful lady” would speak to that subject a little later; and, indeed, I am that lady, and at this very moment what was then a little later has become now.

Bonsoir! I am Myrina Gabrielle, the Garden’s most talked about and intellectually fecund personality. I am widely regarded as an unbiased authority on Garden psychology because of my unique life cycle and the extraordinary popularity I enjoy. I am also a creature that cannot easily be associated with either bee or common fluke, even though nearly everyone claims me as their own. I am thought to be accepting and neutral but to some degree, vain and annoyingly contrary; yet I am chiefly known for calling things as I see them and standing up for myself when I am wronged. For example, Monsieur De Foi has proven to be an individual who can at one moment swear eternal faith to a lady and the next brag to the world that she is his lover! It is beyond poor judgment because it shows that he does not recognize the difference between an act of love and an opportunity to self-gratify in flowery verbosity! I freely concede that a thoughtless mistake was made one evening, but a lady should not be put in a position when she is forced to concede anything! Should she? But, no, my good Monsieur Bee has chosen to speak out of school, and I cannot respect him now. Indeed, I call him monsieur because the distance established in the use of the word captures best my attitude toward him. “Fellow literary character” might be a better fit! Also, Monsieur De Foi is a garrulous jackanapes that is too full of himself for reality to get in a word about itself edgewise.

I am sorry to have given him a wrong impression about our relationship, and I have just now dispatched a correction to that effect. Yes, a correction! I shall remain completely out of his league, and I do not say that only to mock him. I am a butterfly; he is a bee and a misfit drone to boot. And even if he were of my kind, he should not suppose that anyone as popular as me would play the fool for someone who merely hopes to be well-received. Furthermore, I do not think he understands me well. He says that I am like him in that I make everything about myself. That is true on a superficial level, but my veil of conceit is far different from the outrageous fantasies he has about himself. No, my proclivity has little to do with the absurd expression of unmitigated delusion, and everything to do with deflecting others from thinking about me in ways that matter. In any case, I am certain that I will have more to say about Monsieur De Foi before I say, adieu.

The creature at issue is known as a fluke extraordinaire, even though he is technically not a fluke at all, but a maniacal confetti bee that has gone off the cosmic rails. He does so because of his inability to reconcile the sense of self-importance he experiences in having been made a little god with the profound reality of rules that prevent him from fully enjoying the benefits of his status. His frustration with this arrangement causes him to view the Garden with increasing cynicism, and he comes to disdain the common flukes and other bees who seem happier than he is. He views them as victims too, but ones who are intellectually and morally inferior. He inevitably concludes that the rules are bad because they limit him; the flukes because they mindlessly obey the rules; the bees because they envy the flukes, and the Gardener because she seems indifferent to his conclusions.

His solution is always the same: A new Gardener is needed, and it might as well be him (or him by proxy), given his fierce determination to “make things right” and the detailed plan he has for bringing about a better, and more equitable universe. But the fluke extraordinaire is something like John Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost, in that his madness derives from his fixation on the Deity and her perceived flaws. He rebels not because he is inherently evil but because he is a strident iconoclast that has too much personalized the concept of justice. He regards himself so highly and recognizes flaws in others so easily that he cannot fathom why he must endure the same constraints as less gifted, and therefore less worthy, individuals.

Indeed, it is the fluke extraordinaire’s preoccupation with justice that identifies him as a confetti bee and not a common fluke. But he understands justice only in a limited way, confusing the resentment he harbors for his position in the existential paradigm with a noble desire to bring about a more even-handed social reality. Thus, he focuses his efforts on compelling the Gardener to accept his personal universe as a template for what the greater universe should be like. One is tempted to admire the boldness of this madman’s ambitions, but he is more deplorable than the Worm. For death prevails with unequaled indifference, while the fluke extraordinaire flouts the laws of Nature with disdain for Creation itself. He may care deeply about everything, but his caring does not include love, but only a venomous contempt for the rules, particularly the rule that prevents him from being the Gardener. To him, the objective always justifies the means because he sees his personal universe as the logical alternative to an unjust physical reality. If others must suffer, so be it, for indeed, the many are not him and cannot matter since they are merely superfluous details of a greater and more loving bug’s vision.

[1] The poet believed that those who obsess over the lack of justice in human affairs eventually seek to obliterate Creation itself. They endeavor to foist their limited understanding of the “good” on others until others become their mortal enemies and helpless victims. But to the justice-seeker, the end always justifies the means because the end is thought to result in his triumph over physical reality. However, he inevitably recognizes that justice on the physical plane cannot be realized unless all components of a perceived injustice are excised. And of course, the persecution or even the elimination of non-believers is required.

© 2023 Paris Hlad

Author's Note

This piece is a part of my revised work, previously posted at WritersCafe.org. It is from a book in which some of the entries are written in prose or poetic prose.