bumble

Dust motes swirled lazily and a rusty old file drawer shrieked in protest as I pushed it shut with a clang. It was a beautiful late-summer Tuesday afternoon, yet here I stood catching up on overdue office projects instead of lounging outside during lunch. The tiny file room was musty, humid and dim; tucked as it was behind an old, unused staircase. The walls creaked and settled with age, suffused with the antique smell of long-forgotten papers moldering away in cramped, gloomy corners.

I was just turning to leave when I heard a low and furtive buzzing to my left. I glanced toward the sound and noticed a tiny shadow flitting randomly between the yellowed vertical blinds. A bee, drawn to the slivers of brightness drifting through the cracked and narrow window. It bumped and thumped repeatedly against the glass, and I wondered how long it had been there. As I watched, it continued to crawl searchingly across the pane; seemingly quite conscious of where it wanted to go, yet incapable of perceiving the thing that blocked its way.

I walked back to my desk, called a few vendors, attended a flurry of meetings. And for whatever reason, that bee never strayed from my thoughts. Even at home, as I drifted to sleep that night, I pictured it struggling away in muted moonlight, mere millimeters from freedom but firmly trapped in place. What an irony, that such an impenetrable barrier would – from such a close distance – remain wholly, completely unseen.

The next afternoon when I peeked into the file room, the buzzing had ceased entirely and there was no shadowy movement by the window. I sifted my fingers carefully through the blinds, half-expecting a sudden, furious sting. But instead, I spotted a small yellow smudge perched feebly on the sill, wings twitching weakly as I bent to inspect it.

We remained that way for who knows how long, just the bee and me, surrounded by ticking silence. Vaguely, I noted the mingled scents of mildew and moldering paper as I stood and considered. And then I quietly hunted around, finally coming up with an unused file folder and an ancient-looking pencil cup. I bent down, and regarded the bee, and the first thought that came to my mind emerged in a hushed half-whisper: “Will you let me help you?”

And just a few minutes later, I leaned out the back door and lifted the inverted cup. The bee sat uncertainly for a moment, buzzing softly amidst the familiar summer sounds of cicadas and chattering sparrows. And then, just like that, it floated off and up and away.

I thought about the shock of  sudden brightness after spending so long in shadow, the invisible wafer-thin power of substance against repetitive effort, the impact of size and perspective. And as I walked back inside, I considered paths unexplored, obstacles unaccounted for, and the mystery of hands unseen.