The Ferris wheel turns its unavailing cartwheels as the sun swings round the earth. It’s like watching an endless time-lapse film. That makes me the camera, I suppose. I don’t have an opinion; I just record. On and on. Round and round. Day in. Day out.
I am not unhappy, per se. I’m certainly not happy, either. Not disenchanted, not upset, not even melancholy. I just am. Everyone just is. We float along like little leaf-boats in an autumn stream that goes in an endless loop.
I wake up at 6:45. I take my pill (MULTIVITIMAN PLUS A+ ATTITUDE ADJUSTER!) I shower for ten minutes (shampoo, condition, shave, soap, rinse,) take three minutes to blow my hair dry (brush, brush, brush,) and another two to clean my teeth (circles-never up and down-circles, circles, spit.) Breakfast is at 7:00. It’s usually some sort of egg-substitute with a slice of CarbLoaf, which is, if my textbooks are to be believed (they are) 110% more nutritious (“AND DELICIOUS, TOO”) then old-fashioned bread. I have had bread exactly once. My aunt made it; hot and fluffy, it was the best thing I’d ever eaten. I felt the warmth in bones. CarbLoaf is always served cold, like congealed fat. We didn’t see my aunt again after the Day With the Bread. I wrote her a letter, but all I received was a piece of computer paper with a message saying “HER NAME no longer resides at HER ADDRESS” and some other things that I carefully read (as I always do) and promptly forgot (as I usually do.)
School starts at 7:30. Classes are small. Lessons are efficient. MATH, ENGLISH, SCIENCE, HISTORY. Multiple-choice tests and reading assignments to be carefully completed in a Number 7.391 pencil. 30 minutes for lunch. CarbLoaf, fruit paste, and meat substitute. The textbooks say there was real fruit for centuries. On the picture opposite the “apple” tree, there is a large, full-color illustration of a “bee.” It could see very well because of its large eyes and hopped on one foot while its six hands waved in the air. It used these hands to drop fruit to the ground, where ancient people could pick it up and eat it. They don’t exist anymore. Some people think they never did.
Classes end at 3:00. I exercise for the mandatory hour. I go home. I eat my dinner (CarbNoodles, meat-substitute sauce, and dairy-free pudding.) I go to bed. I have lived 16 years of my life this way.
Thursday. Thursdays are just the same as Mondays. And Tuesdays. And Wednesdays. Well, they usually are. But on Thursday, the 26th of Month Six, something different happened. I was biking home after Exercise Period when something caught my eye. It was small and round, buzzing through the air like a pygmy helicopter. I slowed to watch it better. It flew by my eyes and I could see it clearly. Striped, with six tiny legs and a dark, spherical head. I stopped and it droned about my bike, coming to rest on the handlebars. I peered down at it, fascinated. (It must be an insect.) Suddenly, it struck me. It was a honeybee. I laughed and the bee froze, two legs held aloft like signal flags. Quickly, I bit my tongue. (Don’t want to scare it away.) Having declared the threat was nothing more than a case of the heebie-jeebies, the bee waltzed on. It reached my hand and paused. (What mountain is this?) Carefully, her (?) barbed feet (not hands?) tapped a tattoo on my skin. Deciding it to be steady ground and worth the effort, she made ice picks of her toes and ascended the great glacier of my phalange. I looked at my clock. I looked at the sun. The bee’s delicate feet picked at my skin, beating in microscopic pocks.
I sneezed.
Alarm bells screeched in the little bee’s head. She jumped into the air and drove her hopping foot (LIES!) into my skin. It was like being poked with a needle that then was struck by lightning. I cried out (AH!) and shook my hand away. The bee, legs and glass wings a-flailing, went tumbling to the pavement. I lost my balance on the bike and followed after, pinning my leg under the spokes and striking my head on the sidewalk. My poor porcelain vase of a skull rang with pain, my leg was pinched, and the delicate skin on my hand had already throbbed its way into a boiling welt. The little leg was still wedged in my skin, this time forming a victorious flag that claimed me as her own land. I could see her now, but something was wrong. She’d landed on her back, but she wasn’t all in one piece. She’d somehow become strewn about, head and torso in one place; all the little bits that made her insides tick in another. A pit opened in my chest. This was a new feeling (?????) this pit. I wanted the honeybee to be all right again, but it was something more than that. I felt like weeping. That frightened me, another new experience. I didn’t have the words to describe the clouds thundering in my brain because they had never been given to me. But as the lump on my head rose to the size of a walnut, I decided I would go out and take them myself.
I walk home. I suppose the fall knocked something THE GOVERNMENT considers to be important a little loose. I notice things. The cracks on the sidewalk. Imperfections. The clouds that drift across the sky. The way the breeze picks up my hair and rearranges it to her liking. I hum. I’ve never heard music. It’s wicked. But I suppose we have to be wicked once in a while to get God’s attention. I notice the way my toes support my weight, pushing to propel my shins, which push my knees, which pull my thighs, which bring with them my hips and torso and arms and head. The walk home takes me much longer than it should have. Noticing takes time.
The days pass. I tap on things. I draw in the condensation on my windows. I’m careful; I never do these things when anyone else is around. But I’m dying to share these discoveries. I’ve stopped taking my pill. I palm it and then bury it out in the backyard. Now there’s a little patch where the grass is yellowed and dying. I’ll have to start thinking of another place to put it. I feel like I’ve been underwater my entire life and I’ve surfaced in the middle of a hurricane. It’s overwhelming. I creep into the restricted section of the library. There’s hundreds of books. “Animal Farm” and “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Naked Lunch” and “An American Tragedy.” It’s nearly pointless though because it’s very hard to get into this section and when I do most of the words have been covered with black ink that I can’t see through. But I do it anyway. I ponder the honeybee. Where did she come from? Why? Why did she sting me? Of all the people (10,000 per county) out biking that day, why did she land on my handlebars?  I have no idea.
I make a plan. I want to share BEAUTY and HOPE and INSPIRATION. And I want to share FEAR and DISSPOINTMENT and ANGER and JEALOUSY. And I want to share REBELLION and UPRISING and DESTRUCTION. I am tired of this world. I am full of sin. It pours out of my eyes in with my tears when I watch the sun rise. It drips out of my mouth when I sing. It flows from my pen when I draw flowers and write love songs for no one (LOVE is EVIL. It isn’t a thing anymore.) I watch the Ferris wheel spin. I want to set it ablaze. I refuse to be a camera.
I take my exercise in the morning now. (WHERE DID THE BEE COME FROM?)I run along the pier instead of in the gym. I start before the sun. I meet it at the edge of the sea. (BEES ARE EXTINCT.) I watch the oily, dead waters lap at the sand. (IS THERE SOMETHING ELSE?) I look out across the ocean. (IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD OUT THERE?) I walk to the fence that keeps the animals out (IN???) I scream (!!!!!!!!) I have been given demerits and more nasty looks than I can count.
It’s graduation day. I have to make a speech. My FAMILY is PROUD of me (HA!) I have STOLEN and LIED to prepare but I am ready. I have made FRIENDS and BRIBED. I stand on stage. The ceremony takes place outdoors and the sun is in my eyes. I squint against it. My family is in the audience. I can see them. They don’t smile (IT’S RUDE) but they pay polite attention. I cough. GOOD AFTERNOON? THANK YOU FOR COMING?
“Hello. My name is Mercy Imbe. It’s an honor to be here this afternoon.”
I blink and shift my weight.
“Um. I’ve got a few things to say this afternoon.” I cringe at my repetition.
I raise my arms.
The mammoth photograph of the Chairman that glares down at me from the back of the stage is suddenly on fire. It burns quickly and is soon nothing more than ashes that float in the light breeze. It is replaced a white backdrop, carefully stitched together with (stolen) sheets and covered in (stolen) paint that says these (stolen) words:
“WE FOUGHT
THE WORLD
WITH HANDS
TWICE TIED”
I lean close to the mic. I can see security dashing out on either side. I say a silent thank you to the stage manager (Thank you for helping me. Please don’t let them hurt you.) I take a deep breath.
“La résistance est le seul choix.”
I say this as calmly as possible, but nothing happens. No cheers. No fists raised. The audience is not enthralled, as I had expected. They do not care. They’re just unhappy (YOU DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD) the ceremony has been uninterrupted. It’s all been for naught, I realize. I did nothing. How foolish was I to think that I could change the world with 14 words. I feel like crying. Large hands cover my mouth, grab my hair, pull me away from the mic. I know the consequence of my crimes. I will be killed. Executed. And for what? An immature, adolescent push for rebellion inspired by the King of Insects? I think so highly of myself. I’m embarrassed.
But before the hands close over my eyes, I see the sun. Or rather, I see most of it. Much of it is blocked by a swarm of honeybees. I smile. Someone is going to be stung.