Every morning, I hunched beneath the kitchen light measuring coffee and water, careful not to make any sudden moves. We had an unspoken agreement to tolerate each other's drowsy routines. This lasted weeks.
Today was different. Maybe I got up a few minutes early and disrupted the flow or maybe they altered the course of their path in response to a seasonal cue. Our patterns conflicted. I walked into them; they flew into my hair.
I might have been kinder after a cup of coffee but it was too late for that now. We had become unsynchronized. There were no rules and they were armed. There was nothing left to do but grab the can under the sink and dust the air with poison. They did not go gently, startled as they were by such a hostile end to our truce. They reeled into the cabinets, ceiling, against the refrigerator — small, winged missiles. I tilted into the living room, twisted, and smashed head first into the coffee table.
This was not the first time I've fallen so ingloriously. I must have harbored a notion that flight was possible, spreading my arms each time instead of instinctively in front. Face forward into a puddle in the sidewalk, into the dirt beneath a swing set, and now this — outwinged by bees searching for pollen in the glow of a florescent light.
After the fall, the fading image of my hand holding the Raid can poised to spray rouses me. What if someone finds me passed out with my finger on the trigger? They'll know the bees have won.
I stagger up and feel sticky warmth trickling into my eyes. We have no phone. I grab a washcloth for my head and stumble outside where the neighbors are sitting in the small courtyard with some guests. It is very quiet. They swivel in their lawn chairs and stare at me as if waiting for an explanation.
For a moment, I congratulate myself on becoming one of those stories people swap when there is an awkward silence. With uncharacteristic decorum I say, Excuse me, could I borrow your phone?
One of them touches his forehead and asks, Are you O.K.?
I consider the range of possible answers and settle on, I think I need to call an ambulance.
They take me inside. Drops of blood appear on their carpet. I apologize. A woman shoves car keys into my neighbor's hands. Just drive her to the hospital!
In the emergency room, I discover it is not possible to look the other way when someone is stitching your forehead. My brain interprets the needle as an aberrance that calls for retaliation but I restrain myself, queasy from the amplified snap of punctured skin.
When I get home, I plug the bees' passageways. For a long while afterward, I hunch while I make coffee, listen to the buzz of morning in the steam.
Laura Esckelson's poetry has appeared in Chelsea, Beloit Poetry Journal, Paragraph, Many Mountains Moving, Quick Fiction, and Quarter After Eight (volume 14).