“I hear there is a serial killer loose again,” I muttered to the bee perched on my shoulder. “I wish they knew the damage they were causing to family members. I hear he is young, maybe three years old, just a child.” I tiptoed through the woods, watching my step carefully as I am near an anthill. A skunk moves in the distance and I can feel the bee tremble, zipping away to protect her queen. Even my sister couldn’t keep her natural instincts from taking over.
Sighing, I continued to creep forward, getting closer to the anthill. Cautious not to step on any of them, as the ants are particularly busy. Their nest was disturbed this weekend, and the hill that once stood proudly three feet in diameter, now barely reached one foot around. I watched as one of them climbed over my barefoot. It tickled, and the urge to brush it away was strong, but I couldn’t. That ant belonged to someone. It was someone’s grandfather, mother, brother, cousin, or more. It had a right to live.
It was just last year when the scientists learned the truth. That upon death we became the very thing we appreciated the least around us, an insect. Previously we casually shuddered from their appearance, usually killing them even when they were in their own environment.
My sister, Becky, was one of the lucky ones. Caring for honey bees in her earlier years, assured her a place among them. I was forever grateful that Becky chose to visit me still after all these years. I didn’t deserve it.
On television this morning, I watched as a horrific video surfaced of a toddler stomping on the ants in the valley over the weekend. A serial killer. He laughed maniacally as he taunted the ants at his feet. It was why I chose to come out here this morning. To show empathy for those lost souls – for this anthill. I carried honey from my sister’s hive and drizzled it on the ground around the anthill. I watched as the ants eagerly sought out the sweet treat.
It was the least I could do.
I wondered briefly if our lives – shortened as they were as insects – would yet continue again in another form upon death. The science doesn’t say. What if we came back as something even more unusual, such as a flower, or tree. What if we came back as a Marigold and only had one season of life in us. What then became of us?
I left the anthill behind, walking carefully on the grass. What if I became something you stood on, ran on, played in? What if I became the grass? Would I die yearly returning in the following season? Or would each season bring a new being in its place?
These are the questions the scientists have left me with. I wonder how many lives I have destroyed over the years. My God. The spiders I’ve killed over the years. What if I come back as a spider? How terrifying to live that life. Unless I am skilled with poisonous fangs that let me have some kind of control over my life, I cannot imagine a spider’s world.
A honeybee swirled around me, landing on my arm. Becky is back. “That was quick,” I say to her. I open the door to my farm and leave it open so Becky is free to come and go as she pleases. I know I don’t have much time with her. Her queen is always calling her to work.
There is so much I want to tell Becky, and yet I don’t. Instead, I make small talk. I am content to keep her nearby. I observe the Daddy Long Leg that is in the corner of the room, watching as the sweet ants make a trail from the open doorway to the open honey jar on the kitchen counter.
It’s hard to make dinner now. I can’t really use the counters because the insects have begun to take over. I am too afraid to hurt one, and so rather I feed them. Which means I starve unless I get fast food.
Becky stings me with a suddenness that I was not expecting. I watch as she writhes on the floor near my feet fighting for her life, her stinger causing my finger to throb. A tear drops down my cheek. Life is strange. Death is worse.
