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Fly away home
Last night at about four a.m. I realised I hadn't drawn the curtains, having left the window open all day. As I pulled them together, making sure not to knock over the vase of daffodils Ann has left to dry out on her desk the biggest bug I had ever seen (and I've seen those cockroaches at Disneyworld, they're big mofos) buzzed in disagreement with me.
There it sat, vertically, amongst the folds in the curtains as I reminded myself "Its just a bug, its just a bug" and went looking for a glass and CD. Once I had pinned the curtains against the window pane with the glass I slid the CD behind it and effectively trapped the bug which was banging itself against the glass walls of its cell. And I left it there on Ann's desk overnight.
This morning I was able to make out the orange-yellow patches of fur on the inch-long abdomen and when I told Ann about it over the phone she confirmed it was a queen bee. Wow. A queen bee... I've captured royalty.
"She probably doesn't have much air left if she's been there overnight"
Ann does some pretty spectacular macro photography with her Nikon Coolpix 995 so I figured I'd save the queen bee for when she got back tomorrow. It was her own fault for coming in and enjoying the dried out daffodils.
About an hour ago Ann's father died. She called me and we talked and after we hung up I went and placed the queen in her glass prison out on the window sill, turning the glass upwards, removing the CD from the top. Unsteadilly she rose up on cramped wings, feeling the currents of air and able to smell the cherry blossom on the trees in our street. With a buzz and a flutter she rose into the air and flew away from the window past the falling blossom leaves. I wasn't just giving her life again, but her whole colony too, my previous folly forgotten.
Ann flies home tomorrow. We'll go back up there for the funeral soon.
Apr. 2.2002