Insects, Water, And

There's a honey bee in the bath tub.

Just one.

I look around, but can't find any others. I've no idea how it got in. The window is shut. The walls lack gaping holes. Mysterious.

It's trapped in a drop of water the size of my thumbnail. It's the only trace of water in the bath, and here it is, mired fast. I guess it was thirsty. Too thirsty not to fall in face first. It lies on its side, and as I watch, struggles to pull its wings free of the water tension. It spins. It fails.

First ants die in my kettle, now bees in the bathtub.

For a couple of weeks back there, I was good. And I mean good; not 'okay', not 'fine', I was seriously feeling good and great and peppy. I half thought that maybe feeling 'okay', the likes of which I haven't been for a long time, that simply not being in a clear-cut negative frame of mind was so unfamiliar that just 'okay' felt fucking awesome. But no, I was good. I felt cheerful, I felt hopeful. Who knows what brought it on, I don't know, I don't care, I only know that it was wonderful and I wish it was my default setting, I wish I had more days like that than I do.

I said to myself, walking through the carpark with a bag of bananas, that something good was going to happen.

That wasn't hope. I knew it as I know the ridges of my teeth. It was a truth. I went looking at people passing me, opening cupboards at home, because this good thing could be anywhere. I was certain of it.

Which should have triggered some alarms, because my certainty is generally fucked up.

Nothing good happened. That sunshine in my blood went away.

I'm okay.

Maybe it's this sleepfuck I'm going through, maybe it's this thing I read, that thing I discovered, these words I didn't hear, but water is rising. Maybe it has already risen, and I'm already under, and all I'm doing is watching ice form over the surface. As Kirsten said, it's coming up from below. I feel it tugging around the edges and that alone sends me into a panic, twists my gut, leadens my joins, I blaspheme, I don't want to go back.

I know these things come in cycles, nothing will last forever, everything passes, and I don't want to whinge...but after a year or so of poisonmind I was hoping for more than a couple of weeks of 'okay'.

I leave the bee where it is. It isn't strong enough. It's drowning in nothing.