Dinae
has always been sensitive to subtleties. The sun reflecting brightly on the leaves gives
no indication of anything amiss, but as she stands alone in the orchard listening
to the mechanical whir and grind of receding tractors she can feel the menace. The air is still, clotted with more than her foreboding,
on a day presenting a sky as blue as the sea.
Not
far away, servants rush to the Queen as if they are of a singular mind. The air
in the royal chamber vibrates with their intention. Her Majesty’s convulsions began with the very first tainted bite.
One after another after another, the servant’s offerings are rebuked and
it is soon clear she grows closer to death with every anguished cry.
The handmaidens that surround her use every instinct they possess to try to insure her survival, but soon messages hum down the corridors that the Kingdom is in peril and preparations for the worst case are to begin. The infants have barely been evacuated from the royal nursery when the Queen’s stomach explodes, spattering the chamber walls with yellow goo. With that, the guards fly into action.
Dinae’s head snaps left, then right, her darting eyes attempting to identify the direction from which an assault might take her by surprise. She feels the danger in every cell, invisible, but palpable all the same. A cross-eyed lizard cocks his cerulean head up at her as if to ask what she knows that makes her tremble so. She can't know that it is already too late.
She has barely begun to cough when the rain begins. Her immediate thought is that she really is in trouble because now they will surely know. They will know that she's sneaked into the orchard after the implicit order by her grandfather in his sternest no-nonsense voice, to stay inside today.
The handmaidens that surround her use every instinct they possess to try to insure her survival, but soon messages hum down the corridors that the Kingdom is in peril and preparations for the worst case are to begin. The infants have barely been evacuated from the royal nursery when the Queen’s stomach explodes, spattering the chamber walls with yellow goo. With that, the guards fly into action.
Dinae’s head snaps left, then right, her darting eyes attempting to identify the direction from which an assault might take her by surprise. She feels the danger in every cell, invisible, but palpable all the same. A cross-eyed lizard cocks his cerulean head up at her as if to ask what she knows that makes her tremble so. She can't know that it is already too late.
She has barely begun to cough when the rain begins. Her immediate thought is that she really is in trouble because now they will surely know. They will know that she's sneaked into the orchard after the implicit order by her grandfather in his sternest no-nonsense voice, to stay inside today.
…She had
only wished for an apple.
She has barely thought this thought when her throat begins to swell, making it
hard to get enough of the air that suddenly seems thick and creepy-sweet, like that
flavoring they use in cough medicine which makes you want to throw up. As she tries to inhale, the action
hiccups into a tiny razing gasp. She falls to her knees and looks up into the
sky, opening up her mouth to call for help, but instead of a cry, a dozen bees
fall in, choking and stinging her tongue until she gags and throws up for real. The
sky rains bees which fall all around her, convulsing at her feet in a hideous dance.
She flings herself onto all fours, howling, forcing her fisted hands onto a white hot carpet of flailing insects, keeping her head low to shield her face as the air thrums and the bees keep falling. They fall and fall.
They fall on Grandfather’s rosy red apples and onto Denae's cornflower blue dress that Grandmother made. They fall on the cross-eyed lizard that now races in crazed circles flinching as tiny angry creatures crash down around him. They rain down into Dinae’s hair, tangling themselves, tearing off their wings in their maddening frenzy, and raising stinging welts that will cause her brain to swell even faster than the hazy cloud drifting overhead.
She flings herself onto all fours, howling, forcing her fisted hands onto a white hot carpet of flailing insects, keeping her head low to shield her face as the air thrums and the bees keep falling. They fall and fall.
They fall on Grandfather’s rosy red apples and onto Denae's cornflower blue dress that Grandmother made. They fall on the cross-eyed lizard that now races in crazed circles flinching as tiny angry creatures crash down around him. They rain down into Dinae’s hair, tangling themselves, tearing off their wings in their maddening frenzy, and raising stinging welts that will cause her brain to swell even faster than the hazy cloud drifting overhead.
They
fall down the chimney of the farmhouse where her grandparents hold hands and
drink lemonade at the kitchen table, and onto the horses in the next pasture, and even
onto the tractors driven by the men in the yellow protective coveralls with the bio-chemical logos who hadn’t quite made their get-away before the rain came falling down.
~by taree Belardes
5/11/15
(Ch.3)
*This story was written to the music of
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