He stood there, staring at the end of his nose, eyes crossed. The bee’s buzzing and fluttering made his nose tickle. He just wanted to itch; he urgently wanted to sneeze. He wanted to run around the yard doing that “get the hell off my nose” dance throughout the lawn. But he would have fallen over, tripped and fell, only to feel a sharp pinch upon his nose tip. And then he would have watched the swelling. And then he would have laid witness to a death of one who labored so hard. He knew this would happen because both his mom and his dad had said. He wanted no sting, and certainly, he wanted no death, especially in between a bouncy house and a kiddie pool full of bubble water. He was only investigating the color of the flowers, only contemplating the wonderful scent of the roses that were hidden behind the latex and plastic. But, now, suddenly he found himself in a deep concentration upon matters of all “bee-kind.” So, he held his breath and stood still.
And then, he remembered hearing, or maybe he remembered being told, that bees were in trouble. “Bee” kind to our favorite pollinator. This was the boy’s thought as he stared hard into the end of his nose, causing the trees of the neatly kept yard to become multiplied by two. Then, that thought lead to another that left him thinking upon the bat and the butterfly and other creatures that he loved so much. All of them in trouble. It made him think upon the great Timberwolf who was recently on the television, something about people fighting over the big dog, were they hunting him again? And then, something about land...and air...and water...and planet....
He did not understand; it was too much to consider amongst the laughter and clatter of an electric generator running air. So, in a sigh of surrender, he fell hard on to the sod, smacked the ground hard with his “keester.” In a panic, he suddenly thought, without any knowledge of the reason, about a big grass stain that would magically appear on his back pockets, that his mom would not be happy as those were his “good” shorts.
“Sorry, mom; it just happened. I fell,” he said inside his head; besides, he was at his friend’s birthday party. There was no change of wear.
So, he sat with his “keester” deep into the yard. And then, he realized that his “busy,” buzzy friend was now gone, no longer on the end of his nose. He sat there, quite dumbfounded, uncertain whether the jolt of his landing, or the bothering of a fly about his head, had launched his friend wildly back into the air and far, far away. He blinked a bit as he looked around to see all of his “human” friends running, activity to activity, around the yard of the birthday party, like the bee, who left his nose, did before the whole “nose landing” incident, flower to flower.
One of the adults came over, a dad with a can in his hand.
“You okay kid?”
He looked up for a moment at the man and his can, water drops holding still, but hanging on for dear life, on the side of the metal. The boy was impressed by how big and still the man stood high over him. He squinted and blinked hard at the man with the can. And then quietly, but with purpose, the boy simply said, “yeh, but are we?”
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