Friday, 21 June 2013
A Random Meeting
By Warren Lieberman who blogs at 65 and Alive
(While inspired by the events of November 29, 2012 on a cruise ship, this is fiction.)
Roses and colorful flowers entice me constantly. With eagerness and pleasure I seek their sweet, moist and energizing essence; I love them, I need them. I flitter from one to another attracted by their scent and to imbibe the flower’s nutrients. One plant to another I float. What a joyful life.
Sometimes clumps of flowers attach to my feet and wings. I deposit them on other plants as I move around, gifts of life as I move from plant to plant. It’s my job, my purpose. A cycle of life I am told. What a joy. I drink in life and move bits and pieces of seeds to other places.
I’m a traveler, a pollinator, a life giver.
Gusts of wind move me further and further from my hive. I should return; I try but can’t. Now I am lost.
The wind holds me in its grip. I travel without control. High and low I sail, away from the scents and colors near the sandy shore. Trapped by the wind, I go where it takes me.
My wings vibrate to no avail. I can’t return to the land of flowers and sweetness.
Below me is salty water. To drink is to die. Ahead is a dark solid mass, not water.
I urge my weakened body towards the dark mass. The solid mass offers a spot to land and rest. My strength wanes and I drop onto the solid place. No aroma. Nourishment is missing. But I can rest. My wings slow and then stop as I land on the solid thing.
A pink mass is nearby. It projects an aroma of life and moves, closer to my resting spot it comes. I am too weak to flee as it stops next to me.
I garner my diminishing strength and move to it. It’s alive. It has an aroma that stimulates me. I need sustenance. A dark salty liquid streams out - it is bitter but I drink without hesitation. Not a rose or any other flower I know.
Despite the bitter taste, it is wet and I am thankful for the moment. Perhaps it can give me sufficient energy to return to my beloved roses.
A shadow covers me, air moves and the pink mass crushes me. I die, but not before my stinger springs into action and my toxin flows into the pink mass.
Later a man has an anaphylactic reaction and only vaguely remembers the reason.
[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]
Posted by Ronni Bennett at 05:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post
Comments
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This was great. You wrote it with the flavor of laziness; exactly like ship lounge chair relaxation would produce.
Fiction to you, but real to me. I drank from my can of root beer on a picnic. I felt movement in my mouth and spit it all out. I didn't feel a sting, but in minutes my bottom lip got bigger and bigger. I looked like a cartoon character.
I'll just bet I'm not the only one.
Thanks for this driftwood dream.
Posted by: Herm | Friday, 21 June 2013 at 10:26 AM
I've found cold, wet, exhausted bees in my garden many times. My "fix" has been to get a glass jar, place it on its side, without a top, place a 1/2 tsp. glop of honey immediately adjacent to the bee and wait.
Sheltered from wind and rain, and with a food source, a bee will drink and drink and drink, then clean themselves, and finally fly free.
Posted by: Deb | Friday, 21 June 2013 at 03:01 PM
I thought it was a butterfly right up to the end. Did you plan for people to think that?
Posted by: Lyn Burnstine | Friday, 21 June 2013 at 09:59 PM
Thanks for the comments.
Never even thought of a butterfly. I was concerned most of the day after the sting, worried about a reaction that never happened. But I scribbled thoughts into a journal and wrote about when we got home.
Posted by: Warren Lieberman | Saturday, 22 June 2013 at 06:27 AM