1. Bee Man is spoon-feeding you emergency pollen in the back room. You try to indicate that you’d like control of the spoon, but he waves your hand away. You open your mouth. There are only 2 remaining jars from this season of bees, and some of the honey will be needed for the bees themselves. This makes you feel as though you are doing something wrong, but Bee Man says it is ok. Bee Man says: my english are bad. i know this. the pollen come from the beehave, the beehave where we keep the bees, the chambers inside the beehave where we keep the bees. Bee Man raises a spoonful to his own mouth. You both smile in yellow.
2. You dream about wandering barefoot through bee fields, up bee hills, along bee streams. The grass is a powdery sugar-paste. Lavender, thyme, oregano, and sage stuffed into one pocket, and a whole lemon wedged into the other – these are all objects you stole from Bee Man’s garden. It is cold in the ensuing darkness, but you are cold too and this comforts you because you know you are home; the low hum in your chest, the soft bristles on your arms, the flowers begging to be honeyed.
3. Not yet dawn. You wake to roam the Kefalonian olive groves. You are no God, though you drank the nectar. Thousands of bees hover around you like stars, frozen and silent. You spin round and round. The bees never move. The bees are fixed. The bees are the stars and you are the sun.
4. Returning indoors to rest before waking once more to a gentle spring morning, you open your front door. Bee Man stands before you, in the centre of the frame, with his yellow smile.
5. Someone asks you for the time but you do not know because you are a bee now.
6. You have not seen Bee Man for a while. Your fridge is full of olives and your pockets are full of sugar. You now live on this island in a little house. You think logically this must make you Bee Man. You must be Bee Man now.
7. You dream and dream and dream and you never stop dreaming and you never stop humming. If only someone could enter this dream with you. If only someone could hear you hum.
