The Bee Followers

  Doug is on his way to the shops to buy a packet of cigarettes. He is a carpenter and works from the workshop attached to his house. He loves what he does, but he has a few thoughts kicking around his head that bother him. Smoking gives him a bit of time out of the beautiful focus of working with wood, to mull these problematic existential thoughts. Doug sees a bee on a flower. It is a bramble flower. A truck drives past. Everything is normal. 

Except for the fact that he has a strange compulsion to see where the bee goes next. It flies across the road and Doug follows it. It buzzes over the stone wall into the shady forest on the other side. Doug, despite living in the area for most of his life, has never been behind that wall, and he doesn’t know who the land belongs to, but he is following the bee, so he vaults the wall. The bee flies up into the branches of a tree and he finds that he is having a hard time keeping track of it. He catches sight of it again, and guessing it is the same bee, follows it toward a stony track. The bee follows the track. He has to walk briskly, jogging occasionally, to keep up with it. All of a sudden it shoots straight up into the air and he loses sight of it in the glare of the sun on the clouds. He squints further up the track and sees a small group of people standing there, talking to each other. One sees him and calls over to him. Suddenly worried that he might be trespassing, Doug spins on his heel and starts to head in the opposite direction, but hesitates when he realises that following the track might not necessarily take him back to the road. He’s not entirely sure which direction he even came from. 

“Hey, are you a bee follower? You’re a bee follower, aren’t you?” the person calls as she approaches. She’s middle aged and slightly portly. He can easily outrun her, but he is a bee follower. That is exactly why he is there. There isn’t any aggression in the woman’s voice. More of a kind of curious excitement. Doug replies to the affirmative. 

“Come and meet the others!” She says, gesturing for him to follow her back to the small group of people. He does, and notes how unusually diverse the group of people are. There is a black boy, about twelve years old. An Indian woman about the same age as the one who had called over to him. An old European man at least in his seventies. An Asian-looking couple who, upon closer inspection appear to actually be twins. 

“Hello” Doug greets them and they greet him back. “So you also followed the bee?” 

“Oh! Do you think it was the same bee?” the old man asks the Indian woman. “We all thought it was different bees” he then says to Doug. 

“I’m not sure it makes any difference” says the boy. 

“Why did you follow it, assuming it was the same bee?” Doug asks, suddenly aware of how absurd the situation is. Is he mad? Are they?

“Why?”  the male twin, implying the question was just as absurd. “Why did you follow the bee?” his sister asks Doug directly. 

Doug thinks for a moment. “Well, I was on my way to buy cigarettes. And I saw it on a flower on a bramble bush. And then I decided to follow it.” The twins shrug in unison.

“That’s why we followed it.”

“Does anyone know where we are?” Doug asks.

“This is the old rectory orchard isn’t it?” The lady who had called him suggests.

“That’s on the other side of town,” says the old man. “I think it is part of the Spencer family gardens”.

“No, that land was sold to developers last year. That’s where they’re building the retirement village” the boy interjects.

“So nobody seems to know exactly where we are, Doug states, looking at the twins, who shrug again in unison. The Indian lady scowls. She has never heard of any of these places. 

“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never heard of the rectory orchard, or the Spencer family or the retirement village development. And I’ve never ever seen any of you-all”

“Well, okay, where do you live?’ Doug asks.

“I live in the pink house on Enfield road, Varashna extension 17,” she says, matter-of-factly 

“Okay, so how did you get here?”

“I followed the bee!” she says, like she’s talking to a slow witted person.  

“Pardon me asking, “says the old man, “but where exactly is Varashna extension 17? Is that near Mr. Tonkin’s place?”

“No, it’s in Pondicherry, in India. That’s why I’m really wondering what all of you-all are doing here.”

“In Pondicherry?” the twins exclaim. “This is Kennebec County, Maine!”

“Actually this is Houghton, Johannesburg” the boy corrects them. 

Worried, Doug turns to look at the middle-aged lady.

“Neepawa, Manitoba” she says, looking a little frightened.

“Good Lord!” The old man gasps. “Paddock Wood, Kent! How on Earth…?”

“Yes! Yes this is Paddock Wood, Kent!” Doug exclaims, glancing at the others with a mixture of suspicion and pity. “Sir, I think you and I need to leave these good folk to their own devices and make our way back to the village.” 

“Right you are, lad.” The old man says, nodding his farewell to them. 

Doug and the old man set off back down the track and turn into the woods at the point he vaguely remembers coming out of. Wandering through the trees they eventually hear traffic and follow the noise to the wall. Doug helps the man over the wall as he mutters something about there being a gate there the last time. 

“I’m off to get some fags at the Londis,” Doug tells the man.

“The what?” the old man squints at him.

“The shop at the intersection of Barker and Riggs.”

“Oh yes. My, you youngsters have strange nicknames for everything. I’ll come with you. I think I need a smoke too after all that lot.”

“You can have one of mine,” Doug says.

The men set off down the road and a few minutes later arrive at the shop. The old man is making pained noises as Doug gets his cigarettes and the change and steps outside.

“Pass me me a newspaper, will you lad.”

Wondering what’s wrong, Doug does so, and the man stands before him, clutching it with both hands, staring at it. His shoulders stooped, his head slowly shaking.

“No, no no. Not 2021. It’s 1967! 1967 I tell you!”

Doug lights his cigarette and takes a deep, deep drag.