The Bee Keeper
By a.m. baker.
There was a girl whose words became bees. Because she talked too much, the bees were many and they hummed in her belly, buzzed in her throat until they swarmed up into her head and stung the backs of her eyes, making her cry. The girl felt them buzz into her mouth and push past her teeth to escape into the kitchen where, a moment before, she stood washing dishes. She clamped her hands over her mouth, but it didn’t stop the bees.
The girl’s mother heard the buzzing and came to see what her daughter had done this time.
I have never seen so many bees, the mother said.
The girl tried to say, These are my words, but, of course, all her words had left her and she could only whistle through her throat.
The mother had once been married to a bee keeper, so she knew all about keeping bees. She taught the girl how to tend her bees and harvest honey. The girl collected the honey and sold it at the market on weekends and people liked her honey. The girl liked the stories the bees told her as she harvested the honey and she was glad, then, to have a mother who could teach her how to be the keeper of her own bees.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
a.m. baker is currently nearing the end of her time in Goddard College’s MFA program; after this, she plans to teach creative writing to anyone who will listen. She enjoys writing in her garage, where geckos often keep her company. When not writing, she can be found mothering her rambunctious pre-schooler or spinning up a yarn on her spinning wheel.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Friday, September 3rd, 2010.
