LORD OF THE BEES. A TALE ABOUT A BOY AND BAD BAD BEES

 

Once upon a time there was a boy. A little cute boy who adored to tease bees, hornets, wasps and so on. He used to take his stick and poke it into a hornets’ nest, a vespiary or a beehive. It’s unknown why he was doing this — maybe was hunting for the thrill or liked to feel his power over bees, or this was his way of attracting attention, or maybe he did this for the sake of entertainment. However, every time he stirred the nest, angry bees, naturally, were attacking the boy and stinging him to pieces.

After that the poor boy usually started crying and shouting, ‘Ouch! they stung me! it hurts! bad, bad bees!’ He used to cry very loud and looked really pitiful. So the boy’s mom, siblings and friends used to come to pity him, to console and to curse these damn bees that dared to sting the poor boy. Stings and wounds healed quickly, so the boy used to take his stick and head toward the nearest hornet nest, again. 

Time passed and the boy achieved the big success in life and gained the huge army of fans and followers. Also he perfected his skill of stirring beehives — he turned it into a some sort of art and a promotional tool. He poked the stick into a beehive very masterly and it always worked like a clockwork toy: stirring—bites—‘bad, bad bees!’. Now not just his mom and friends were coming to pity the poor boy and to curse these damn bees, but also the whole army of his fans and followers. With posters and slogans like ‘bad bees, leave him alone!’, ‘fuck the bees, the boy is the best!” they joined the supporting campaign. So the boy always was in the center of attention and knew how to stay there. If he, suddenly, felt lonely, ignored or bored, he always could take his magical stick and stir a beehive a bit — the greatest entertainment was guaranteed. He became soon Lord Of The Bees, he had unlimited power over them and could in a second create the buzz in a swarm. People who knew him well were saying, ‘He lives for stirring beehives!‘ — this is how passionate he was about it.

Yes, sometimes bees used to bite him more painfully than he expected, but like any magician or sword-swallower, he trained himself to endure the pain and over time his skin became less sensitive — anyway, pain was the price he was paying for the show, and he knew — the bigger the pain, the greater the show. Tho’ unlikely he really liked pain — who does?

Sometimes there occurred really evil poisoned dangerous wasps that stung him just horribly, so the boy was aching and mending really long after that, but then went to the next vespiary armed with a canister of gasoline, fire and the thirst for revenge. In his suffering he managed to forget it was him who provoked wasps first and blamed them for their unmotivated agression. ‘What have i done to you? why did you sting me?” — was whining the boy.

Sometimes angry bees could sting him not right away, but a bit later — ‘out of the blue’, thought the boy who could forget already how it began. He was upset with an unexpected attack — he hasn’t healed his old wounds yet and begged, ‘please, don’t do it to me, i don’t need it now!’. But bees are bees, you can’t explain to them that it’s a bad timing, you know.

Years were passing… Some of his old friends, siblings and colleagues lost enthusiasm and could not play their part as convincingly as before anymore, couldn’t keep chanting ‘poor boy, bad bad bees’. For they thought, ‘after all, it’s just an old trick with the known, prognosed and expected finale, a show with the obligatory scene: the amicable chorus cursing damn bees and praising the poor boy.’ They thought that the boy has to know by now: disturbed bees can sting. Let alone wasps. If you dislike being stung, don’t stir a beehive. If you, due to your personal reasons, are fond of pain — go ahead, but don’t complain then. Learn to recognize consequences of your deeds and take responsibility for your actions. So they thought. They were sure that as a result of his trick, the boy in fact gets what he wants — the image of a victim of bad bad bees and therefore attention, people’s sympathy and love. That his life is throughly the result of his choices, steps, realized talents (including the talent to create buzz and stir beehives), so he deserves all what happened to him in his life — and all his scars too, along with his big success.

“You don’t understand!’, cried the boy who didn’t see any connection between poking a stick into a beehive and his aching wounds. ‘No one understands me!’, insisted the boy. People shrugged — they really didn’t understand how someone can’t see this connection. But hey, years have passed, they were grown-up, mature people now and he… in his heart and mind he was still a little boy, seeking for attention or maybe for a thrill. A poor boy, stung by bad, bad bees.

— bzzzz… bzz…
— ouch!