The Hive

                          The Hive



When I awoke I was lying under the apple tree, looking up at all its glory. It looked beautiful from this angle, mighty. It also looked like a weapon, ready to bomb me with the juicy red cannon balls. The sun started to peak at me through branches of the tree, it was a Hot mid July day and the apples were at it's finest.
"Oooh," the pain started to come to me and I felt dizzy. I must have fell out and hit my head on the rock setting beside me. I had had a bit of a bump on my head, but that wasn't where all the pain was coming from. It seems that I have been stung several times by bees. I felt it on my arms and my chest. I even had stings on my ears and in my mouth. Eeew gross, they were in my mouth.
I better get up, realizing I'm still laying here in all these apples and I don't want to get stung anymore. Bees love the apples, there every where in the orchard, they loved to eat the fallen apples that split open when they hit the ground. There would be some apples with as much as ten bees on it. The thought of mass bug movement makes my stomach turn.
I heard a voice calling to me from the distance. It's Mister Pickens, he ran the orchard. He has been here since my daddy was a kid. He was always here tending to the trees, picking and pruning, all the fun stuff. When I was six Mr. Pickens would put me on his shoulders and let me pick my favorite apples. Now that I'm twelve, not so much. He says I'm way to big to pick up. That's okay though, I like climbing the trees anyway. Except for when I fall, like today, that's really smarts.
"I'm okay Mr. Pickens, I wasn't very high." but my head is starting to hurt and these stings are burning a lot.
"You need to be more careful Tommy," the old timer said leaning down with his hand stretched to help me up and walk me over to the curb so I can sit down safely away from the apples and all the bees.
"Are you sure your okay, that's a lot of bee stings" he said checking me out. "How long were you out?"
"I don't know sir, I remember falling, then waking up." I rubbed my knot, to let him know that I had bumped my head.
"You better run home Tommy, your mother should she that head of yours and all of those nasty stings, your starting to swell up."
"Yes sir, I will, I'll go home right now."
I jumped up from the curb and grabbed my bag full of apples and threw it over my shoulder and darted in to the small woods that ran behind the neighborhood. It was a short cut to the house and it was a lot more fun.

After I ran home and told mamma about what had happen she immediately loaded me up in the car and we drove to the doctors office. This sucks, what ever happened to a little ice and some calamine lotion for the stings. Mom insisted that we go, she said I was due for a check up anyway.
The Doctor came in to the room; he was wearing his long white over coat and this big magnifying glass on his head. He had stringy white hair that barely covered his melon and small round little glasses that sat on the end of his nose. His fingers were old and flattened and his breath smelled like black licorice.
"Take your shirt off Tommy" he put his stethoscope into his ears, "I want to hear your breathing." putting the stethoscope to his chest, "breath in deeply Tommy." 
After he was done with that he said okay, drop'em. I immediately turned red and looked to my mother. I really didn't want her to be here when he did this part, and I think she new it because she got a little red too and turn her chair to the wall. My heart didn't slow down at all, I felt as nervous as...as...well, I was pretty nervous. It was worse than the time Cindy Snidemiller tried to kiss me on the play ground at school, all the kids were laughing at me...(Cindy and Tommy sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G is what they sung over and over.)
"Turn your head and cough Tommy."
Ahh, yes that dreaded request, you always knew that when you were ask to turn your head and cough...somebody had you by the balls.
I looked at my mother with her back to me, and then I looked around the room at all of the equipment, just trying to keep my mind off of it. I don't even think I was breathing anymore.
"Okay, Tommy you can pull your pants back up."
Thank God, that was over. I quickly pulled up my pants and sat back down. Then I heard him talking to my mother. He said everything looked good, and that I was to use this lotion on all my stings and my head will be fine. The receptionist gave me a sucker when we were leaving, I guess you never out grow wanting to get a sucker, because my mom wanted one too.
On the drive home we stopped and got some ice cream at Chilly Willy's. My mother got mint chocolate chip, which was her favorite. Mine was chocolate, just plain chocolate. I got it in a sugar cone, because it had more chocolate at the bottom of it.

It was Saturday morning, and my mother just called me down for breakfast. She would always make a big breakfast on Saturdays. Still lying in bed, I yelled down to her that I would be right there. I pulled the covers off of me and sat up at the edge of my bed. Brrrr, I thought, it's a little chilly. I stood up and went to my window. It's snowing, pretty hard. It was the end of warm weather, all the grass was white and all the flowers have died and will return in the spring.
"Tommy, your pancakes are getting cold!"
"Coming mother," I threw on a pair of jeans that were lying on the floor, and my green Jets shirt and headed down for breakfast. Kenny Mitchell the neighbor boy was sitting at the table eating pancakes, he would come over every Saturday for breakfast. My mother would baby sit him on the weekends while his mother would work. She danced at some bar in town, she must have been pretty good because she always had strange men leaving her house saying she was the best ever, and once when I was at the grocery store with mom I saw a few people pointing at her and talking quietly to each other. I think she might be famous.
While I was sitting there eating my eggs I heard my mother let out a little scream and then I heard this big smack. I looked around and saw mom with her shoe in her hand looking on the ground.
"Damn bees," she said
"What bees mom, it's winter time." I looked around for another, but I didn't see any.
"Well," she said "there was one left over, he must had gotten shut up in the house." she swept him up with the broom, "Well, he met his maker today."
It was kind of sad if you think about it. This lone bee by luck gets trapped in the warm house for the winter, surviving the cold that bewildered its brothers and sisters. Living the high life in the honeybee penthouse, only to get squashed my non other than my mother the great white bee hunter.

Kenny and I finished up breakfast and headed out to the barn to play tag. It was a lot of fun playing tag in the barn because of the haylofts and grain bins to jump into. Sometimes we climb across the beams and fall off into the grain, it was probably ten feet high.
"One...two...three..."
Kenny counted while I scrambled for a hiding spot. There were tons of places to hide in the barn; it was just a matter of finding one that he won't look at.
"Ten...eleven...twelve..."
Oh Man, I can't find one...
"Eighteen...nineteen...twenty, ready or not here I come."
I heard Kenny give his final warning, he was coming and my hiding place was far from good, I managed to squeeze my self in between to hay bails on top of the loft. It's not bad but if he finds me, it's all over.
I can hear him coming up the wooden ladder that my daddy built. It creaked with every step up, and you had to stretch your legs in the middle because there were two rungs missing. Kenny didn't used to be able to come up here because his legs were to short. I would hide forever before exposing myself for the chase.
"I know you're up here!"
Shoot, there he is, sneaking around like some cat looking for his mouse. I could just jump out now while his back is to me, not to reveal my tight space. I can leap out and jump off the hayloft and into the grain bin and be gone. I could hide somewhere else, before he got back down the ladder, since he was afraid to jump.

Kenny moved to around to his left, he looked behind the bails of hay one by one. He stopped to listen; he heard me shuffle my foot and whips his head around.
"There you are!"
I'm busted! I quickly leap from my snug hiding spot and head for the big jump. Kenny reaches his arms out to grab me and I do a quick left-right juke to get by him, like some big time running back. Then with out a thought I leap into the air for the grain bin, but just as I do the hay bail that acted as the floor slipped out of its space causing me to loose my balance and fall missing the grain bin and hitting the ground. I land on my back forcing the air out of my lungs, I gasp for a breath. I can't breath. Kenny came down the ladder as fast as he could to see if I were okay. I looked up at him and his face was in a state of panic.
"I'm okay Kenny, I landed flat on my back, nothings broken." I said with strain in my voice. But Kenny's face didn't change; he was pointing to his mouth.
"What is it Kenny?"
"Bees!"
"What..."
"Bees...you have a bee on your mouth and a bee in your hair."
I quickly spit at the bee, brushing my face with both hands vigorously and then started waving my arms about like some crazy chicken. I begin dancing around and screaming... "get'em off, get'em off me!" I darted off in a flat out sprint out of the barn. Flapping my arms and spinning circles the whole time. Kenny comes over to me, I'm standing hunched over with my hands on my knees out of breath. I've never been much afraid of bees before, ever since I was stung last summer I've felt differently. I guess seventeen bee stings will change a persons mind a bit.

Kenny just left for the night and I decided to turn in to my room. Now I sit here in my chair looking into my mirror thinking about what had happen. I didn't tell my mom that I fell, because than she wouldn't let us play in the barn anymore. I keep thinking about the bees and the fact that it was November. The one in the house you can explain, but outside in the barn, that left me a little confused. I'm not going to tell her about that either.
Mom and Jimmy, the town market stock boy, were unloading groceries from the car and bringing them into the house. I was sitting on the wooden fence next to the barn chewing on a piece of wheat. The winter was ending and all the snow was almost gone, spots of green over took the yard, like a giant green and white cow. The ice sickles were melted down to little nubs, and you can finally see the bicycles that were buried in a snowdrift.
"Tommy!"
My mother is calling me in, she probably wants me to help her put away the groceries, or maybe she baked some cookies and she had some on a plate with a tall glass of milk. I jumped down from the fence and ran toward the house, I leaped over the big red wagon and swung on the rope hanging in the tree. I love that rope.
I ran into the house and collapse to my knees, I was breathing heavy and couldn't hardly hold my head up.
"What's wrong Tommy?" my mother said concern in her voice.
"I don't know, I am having trouble breathing." I stood up and raise my hands above my head. That's what the gym coach said to do when we got tired. He said it opens up the lungs, I guess it works; I'm starting to feel better.
"Are you okay, honey?"
"Yeah...I'm okay...but, I only ran from the barn."
"I think we should go see Dr. Jones."
My mother loved to take me to the doctor's, no matter what was wrong with me, we were rushing to the Doctors, but this time I couldn't agree with her more. I didn't feel right, my insides were squirmy, and my breaths were still short.
"I don't feel right, momma." giving in to her, easily.
She grabbed my jacket and handed it to me, and then she gave me a great big hug.
"Sorry, I just love you, sweet heart."
"That's all right mom, I actually want to go...this time."

So here I am sitting here on this cold paper with my backside for the worlds observation. Waiting for Doctor nutcracker, with his smell and his ...his...dust.
Mom is here with me, sitting over in the corner looking at her magazine. I wish she would just sit in the waiting room, you never know what this guy might be up to.
I hear footsteps coming down the hallway; they made a clogging sound on the hard floor. The sound stopped out side of the waiting room door, the shadows of two feet peered underneath the door. My palms got sweaty and it was hard to swallow. I looked at my mother, she was looking at her magazine. The door opened and Dr. Jones came in, his big cheesy smile stretched wide.
"Hello Tommy, having trouble breathing I hear."
I told him all about the breathing problems and the weird sensations that I noticed my body going through.
"Sounds like you have a case of puberty on your hands." Dr. Jones picks up his stethoscope from around his neck and puts them in his ears. He clears his throat and places the cold round plate of it on my back.
"Breath deep for me Tommy."
I did, and they look on his face was a little puzzled. Almost like he had heard something he wasn't supposed to. That got me a bit worried.
"Tommy, please don't hum when I'm listening to your breathing."
"Doctor, I'm not humming, I'm just breathing deep." I continued to breath for him as he moved the stethoscope from spot to spot on my back and chest.
"Tommy, I would like to take some pictures of your chest...your lungs."
"You mean a x-ray Doctor?"
"Yes Tommy, that's right." He looked at my mother, and gave a smile.

After the x-rays, the Doctor told us to go home and come back tomorrow to discuss the results. I looked at my mother and she new what I was thinking right away.
"Dr. Should we be concerned," looking down to Tommy "I don't think he feels at ease."
The Doctor looked and me and put his had on my shoulder, then he kneeled down and whispered in my ear, "don't worry Tommy, you go home and rest and we'll get you all fixed up tomorrow."
I looked at him and then my mother, "okay," I said, now looking down at my feet, "I will."

The next day I woke up in my bed and the covers were kicked off of me, causing me to have quite a chill. I quickly grab my blankets and pull them up to my neck and bury myself to a small fetal position in attempt to warm myself. Then a flash of fear struck over me. I saw something in the corner of my eye that I didn't expect. I was afraid to look back to confirm, but I had to for my safety. I slowly turned my head and saw to bees hardly moving on my mattress. They were rolling around, buzzing and moving there wings but were unable to take flight. There not as scary when they can't fly I thought staring down at the helpless bugs. I then scooped them up on to a red folder that I had lying on my bedside table and tossed them out of my window. The window was cracked open. That must be how they got in. It's still seems early for bees, they had to have built a nest inside the house somewhere. Maybe they made a home in the attic, or maybe with in the walls. We have just seen to many bees this winter and now early spring.
"Tommy, time for breakfast."
"OK!" Great, after breakfast we are going to the doctor's office to talk about the x-rays. Then the Doctor can fix me up and I can play again with out getting short of breath. I also get to see inside my body and that's going to be awesome. I wonder if you can see what I ate that day. Let's see I had an apple, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and.and...oh yea, a brownie that Mrs. Shoughtly made. Mmmm... I can almost smell those fresh baked brownies cooling in the windowsill right now.

Mother and I walked into the Doctor's office, my mother went to check in at the front desk and I as always went to the fish tank. I loved to watch the fish swim, the doctor made their fish tank look just like the ocean. There were all these cool rocks, they were pink and white and there were even some blue ones. There are also some really cool plants.
"Tommy"
I looked at my mother calling out my name; it was time to go see the doctor now. I ran over to my mother and we went into the room. Dr. Jones was in their waiting for us; he was hanging all the pictures up on this huge white wall with clips. He would clip each picture up one by one. Then he hit the lights and it got dark, real dark.
"Don't worry, I'll turn the lights on the light board and you'll see again Tommy." Dr. Jones walked over to the light switch to turn on the giant light board that he hung the pictures up on. "I'm as excited as you are Tommy, I haven't seen these pictures yet either."
The doctor hit the lights and walked over to the light board. We anticipated his discovery because my mother and I had no idea what we were looking for. He stood there and looked at the pictures but he didn't say anything. His face fell to a frozen terrified look, and he looked real nervous too.
"What is it doctor?" my mother asked him.
He kept looking at the pictures not believing his eyes. He was shaking his head back and forth as he looked at one picture then the next, continuing to shake his head.
"This isn't possible," he mumbled.
He than walk over to the wall and pressed a red button, "Ms. Waters, could you send Dr. Perry in to the viewing room please."
A voice came over the speaker, "Right away Dr."
A moment later another doctor walked into the room and started looking at the x-rays.  His face also fell in to an apprehensive gaze. This made my mother and I shudder in cold fear.
"Doctor, I demand to know what the problem is, you're scaring us."
I never seen my mother use so much force in her voice, she was serious.
"Well, Mrs. Evans, do you see these stacks of mass in the left lung right here?" pointing to the areas.
My mother looked, and shook her head yes. "What is it doctor, it isn't cancer is it?"
"No, it isn't." He had a look of disbelief of his own eyes on his face.
"Well" My mother was waiting for an explanation, tapping her foot and fidgeting her fingers.
"This is hard for me to say, because it doesn't make any sense."
"What is Doc."? I asked, wanting to know.
The doctor sat me down next to my mother and walked over to the x-ray's. He pointed at my lung and was pointing out the layers of mass that he was referring to.
"Do you see these?" he looked at me and his eyes started to water and shine. "There...well, there..." he fumbled around looking for the right words. "Hives."
"Hives?" my mother asked in confusion. "What, some kind of internal hives?" she started looking at my skin. "Like a internal rash?"
"No not exactly," he put his hand on mothers shoulder, "Bee hives."
"What!"
"Their bee hives," shaking his head.
"What!" She looked at me and stared crying. "That's impossible!"
"I agree," the doctor said, but that's what it is He turned the light table off and flicked the lights above us back on. "I guess when he laid there unconscious last summer under that apple tree, some bees must have made there way into his mouth, down his throat, and into his lungs." He rubbed his face with his hands trying to wake himself up from this what seemed to be nightmare. "They have been multiplying all winter and they've built this mansion of a bee hive with in your left lung and that's why your shortness of breath is happening, you have been using one lung to breath."
The horror on my mothers face was piercing to look at. She didn't have any words to speak, nor did I. We just sat there looking at the doctor, staring into his face, waiting for him to say, I got you. But he didn't.
"Oh, my God...oh my God" my mother started screaming over and over, she started to cry in hysterics. "How many bees are in...in...in." she couldn't get the words out.
"Thousands" the doctor said, "thousands of bees."
I sat here with my hands folded and my head down. I could feel them inside me, now that I knew what was causing these funny sensations inside me; it stood out more to me. I could feel them building there homes and filling up my body with there...honey. I was feeling sick. The more I thought about it the more it scared me. I wanted to run away from them like I did in that barn, but I couldn't...I couldn't do anything.
"What do we do doctor?" my mother asked looking at me and gripping my arm, "how do we get the bees and their honey combs out of my boy?"
"I don't know," the doctor said "If we operate, that may excite the bees and they'll sting him to death." he looked up for another answer, as if he were asking God, "If we wait to long the flowers with start to grow and then the bees will want to do what they do naturally, they will leave the hive to get nectar." he looked down to me and then my mother "that could kill him too."
"So your saying that he has no options, he's going to die no matter what we do?"
"I don't know what I'm saying just yet, this kind of thing just doesn't happen, there isn't any book to look this up." he rubs his face again. "I need to consult with some other doctors, go home and try to relax, and I will call you with any further information I get." looking down to Tommy, "I'm sorry Tommy, I wish I could just take them out of you."
"So do I Dr. Jones." my lip starts to quiver. It seems so unreal, so much like a bad dream. I look down to my chest, I felt violated, robbed of my own breath, my own body. I just want this to be over.

I was sitting on the porch watching the sun grow on the new day, it was about three weeks since we went to the doctor and we haven't heard anything yet. Kenny was here with me, he was playing with a yellow dump truck. My mother was here too, she was sweeping the dirt off the porch with her corn stalk broom. I felt the bees in me; they were getting stronger as the spring came into season. They were more active now; sometimes one or two would fly out of my mouth. I wouldn't let them back in when they tried to come back, I would squash them.
My breathing was getting harder and harder, I think they started to build in my right lung now because I could feel funny fluttering there as well.
The phone rang and my mother looked over at me, she had a looked of worry and excitement. Maybe the doctor has good news; maybe it wasn't even the doctor. It hasn't yet been the doctor.
"Hello?" she answered, "Doctor, so nice of you to finally call."
I heard her talking and it was the doctor, I lifted my body to a straight posture to have a bit of positive acknowledgment. My mothers face grew grim and she collapsed to the floor, falling to her knees. My positive feeling shrunk to fear, the look on her face as if I were already gone, a look of no hope. That scared me, it scared me a lot. I can't take it anymore. I looked out across the field, I looked at the wild flowers that grew in the pasture. I wanted to run through those flowers and end this horror...this torture.
"Tommy, I have something to tell you," my mother said to me with a sob in her voice. "That was the doc...
I didn't let her finish; I jumped up from my sitting position and leaped from the porch. I didn't have much energy or breath but I gathered everything I had and I ran...and ran...and ran as fast as I could run, I ran right for the field of wild flowers. My mother screaming no Tommy no, behind me I didn't care I was going to end this, and I wasn't going to stop for nothing. I sprinted to the fields and ran to the middle, I held out my arms and fell to my knees, lifted my tired head up and opened my mouth as wide as I could and screamed. While thousands of bees poured out of my mouth, flying away in drones. I could feel them all escaping their home, evacuating the premises. They were hungry for their flowers, for their sweet nectar. They hummed out of my mouth in a black cloud that swirled and pulsed over me. As the last bee exited my body I crumpled, lifeless. I lay here in unimaginable pain, defeated, but free.
It has been forty-years since that day, the day the bees left me. The doctors repaired my right lung and my left lung was completely removed and I received a new one. The bees will always be a part of me, I guess.
I run a honey farm now, and it's one of the largest in the nation. We ship millions of bottles of honey throughout the world. So I guess you might say what happen to me that summer was a blessing. And I'll always be known as old man honey.

The End.