Bee-Box

Webfic Challenge: Write something off the cuff for 15 minutes.

Audio Version Here

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The bee buzzed through the field, scanning for anything particularly interesting to inspect. Among the purple flowers, it saw the usual sources of pollen and nectar, but in the distance, beyond where its sight could usually stretch, it saw a deep red pulsing.

Ancient instincts stirred in its primitive nervous system. The pulse of light drew it in, a shade of crimson unlike any it had encountered before, were it able to remember. It alighted on the source of the glow, a plastic box that felt strange to its simple senses.

The box buzzed beneath it, a deep hum more felt than heard. In its mind, the bee felt a stirring. Something was forming, a notion, a thought, an idea beyond its simple desire for food and resources. Visions swam before its simple eyes, more complex than anything it had seen before. It had not the capacity to realize that what it saw was not truly there, but uncanny impulses in its mind.

It saw a distance it could not grasp. A field of endless darkness, broken by points of light, some clustered in strange spirals. It saw the growing illumination of one such source of light. As it neared, huge round shapes appeared from the darkness, streaked with all manner of colors, reflecting the shine of the ever growing light. And then, one such shape, blue and green and brown, streaked with white, loomed before it.

The vision continued forward, the new colorful sphere growing and growing as it came ever closer. Soon, it was so large that it engulfed the entire field of view. And as it neared, the darkness broken with specks of light faded away into a deep, glowing blue. Down and down the vision went, towards a patch of green. The color was solid at first, but become more complex as it neared, revealing specks of other colors. The vision flew fast, and the field overcame the vision entirely. The bee, in its limited awareness, understood that the vision had struck the ground.

For the briefest of moments, it was aware. It was aware of the box beyond being just a thing stuck to the ground. It was aware that the ground stretched far longer than it could have ever conceived, if it had even once thought about it. It was aware, suddenly, of what it was, and of the scale of its existence. Beneath it, the box hummed and glowed, and the bee felt itself begin to do something it had never done before. It began to remember…

And then, something cold and wet smacked into its back. Around it, small pattering sounds could be heard. Water. Falling. Rain. The bee flapped its wings in a panic and zipped into the air, knowing it had to find shelter. It would have to return to the… the what? Return? To the hive? No, not the hive, to something… red? Red… flower? Flower. Pollen. Food. No! Wet! Rain! Shelter! Then pollen, then… then it’s train of thought dissolved into the primitive instincts that had guided it and it’s hive all this time.

Behind it, the box’s hum faded to silence. Its glow died to nothing. All was still, save for the rain.