The Bees: Exodus

A very early post today (partying later with the Nano crowd!) Enjoy...

The Exodus

She stumbled at the gate. Pawing at the stiffened lock. In bare feet I tried to turn her, to lead her back into the house. As my toes and heels numbed, I realised my efforts were futile. Back inside I pulled on socks, boots, extra layers.

In the garden Elaine was still having trouble with the gate. And she wasn’t the only one.

A silent stream of people passed us. With dead eyes and limp arms they trudged. In twos and threes, a few larger groups. None of them acknowledged their companions, they moved less like driven cattle than iron filings pulled by a magnet. Some of them I recognised; neighbours, people I vaguely knew from the area. Entire families walking. A migration of the senseless.

Elaine gave up with the gate. Instead she walked at the fence. Gracelessly climbed over, slipping, falling to the pavement. She walked away without even a single backwards glance. Not at me. Not even at Joey.

My son followed in his mother’s footsteps. Too small to get his leg over the fence, he had to climb up a foot. I lifted him down, feeling his body chilled through his pyjamas. He didn’t notice his sudden weightlessness. As soon as his feet touched the ground he attempted to climb the fence again. A second time we played through this pantomime. A third.

Elaine had walked far up the street. Barely visible in the throng.

Where were they all going? I wasn’t going to find out standing in the garden. I’d already lost my wife, should I let my son go too? Should I take him back in the house, see if his restlessness abated? Perhaps he would eventually awaken properly?

I opened the gate and watched him walk through, taking his place, walking away.

I walked beside him. None of the others took any notice of me. they kept their distance, I was not jostled. We walked down the street, a silent mob, gathering more people as we trudged. At the end of my street, the crowd turned without discussion or communication, like a flock of birds they simply veered left, onto the main road. Swarming quietly past the abandoned cars and shunning the pavement. Down the road they marched, all the way into the town centre.

The town centre was eerily silent. Shutters rolled up, the mob reflected in dozens of dark windows, looking like the world’s most peaceful protest. Towards the mall and up the escalators in neat lines, filtered as neatly as water, flowing up the stilled steps to the unlocked but closed doors. As I stepped slowly up each step, I wondered how they were getting through the doors at the top. As I crested the escalator I was amazed. At each door, one of them stood, holding the door open.

We filtered into the deserted mall. Filled the space until they were packed in tight. A silent army of drones, standing. just standing.

Unable to take this weirdness any longer, I led Joey through the crowd, felt a sense of relief he was allowing me to lead him. I found a bench and sat, joey standing by my side, his hand still in mine.

I sat and i stared at all these people, who were standing, like Elaine and Joey had earlier in the bedroom. Standing, unmoving, unseeing, just waiting.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” a voice said beside me.