Answer # 30 - The Window had Closed

There are some windows that open briefly, something or other flies in - maybe a butterfly, maybe a bee - and the interior is altered.  Briefly.  Or maybe forever.  Maybe the window gets stuck open and a swarm fills the room and sets up shop in a brown drippy blob on a lamp shade, and forever after, at Christmas and birthdays, the tale is told of the day the bees came.

I was a kid, in my backyard in southern California, watching a swarm of swirling bees - both my dogs chasing the thing, barking and yipping - my brother and I standing at the sliding glass door, terrified to open it, but cracking it anyway, just in case we might get the opportunity to slam it shut and run, screaming.

The day the bees came.

Windows open.  Butterflies flap their wings... windows close.  Dogs yip.  Shirtless teenage boys with sideways caps walk down the streets in search of open doorways filled with silhouettes of winking (one eye shut, one eye open), long-legged girls, while smaller children stand at sliding glass doors watching bees swirl and then land on the garage roof in back of the house - all together, in a blob the color of dark honey, bees dripping off the gutter..

Why did this happen?

Now I know they were following a queen who'd gone willingly, or who'd been forced to leave her hive.  The bees, I mean.  They gathered all around her on the roof, not knowing what else to do.  Then, I didn't know that a window had closed.

For a dear friend of mine, a window closed yesterday.  And another won't open for a while.

Dogs will yip.  The snow will swirl.  It's coming tomorrow, and we'll have to drive straight into it, due West.  And my friend is due East.  And the snow will roar over us, as we drive, gather strength and head straight for him and his house on the hill where the windows will all be closed. And I don't know why, but all I can think of are bees in the backyard, tapping on the sliding glass door.