Honey Bee Death Spiral

I was just sitting there in my car, idling, waiting for the light to turn from red to green and mostly not thinking much, I don’t think. What happened seems somewhat odd to me: a honey bee death spiral.

I was just sitting there. My windows were up. My car wasn’t moving, and something caught my eye. It happened fast—faster than you’ve read this. It was probably the odd spiraling that caught my eye, the mostly black downward spiral, completely outside the norm.

I was just sitting there watching it spiral toward my windshield, still moving, still alive, and I realized before it landed on my windshield it was a honey bee and was already starting to think of the oddity, still before it landed on my windshield.

I was just sitting there and the bee spiraled down and hit my windshield and slid on down atop my wipers. I like bees. I wasn’t going to wipe it. So I left it. I watched it. It twitched. The light turned green.

I was just sitting there but I hit the accelerator and was thinking about this odd death spiral: how often does one see a bee spiral to death from the air? I sure don’t see such a thing often—never have, that I know of.

I was just sitting there, driving but thinking. Was it an omen? A warning? A blessing? Climate change, or just old age? I don’t know what makes bees die, or when or how it happens. It didn’t die in the air I know because it was alive when it hit my windshield and slid on down—still alive—but did it decide to die? Did it just fly until it couldn’t fly anymore then come crashing down, maybe with dementia or Alzheimer’s and it could no longer remember how to do it right?

I was just sitting there in my car and a bee dropped out of the air, alive for the moment but dead in another, and I had to move on, and I did, and I thought about the bee and I looked for it when I got to daycare to pick up Liam, but I couldn’t find it.

I was just sitting there, driving, and its dead body probably blew off my car. Maybe it slid further down. I tried to watch for it, but I didn’t see it.

I was just sitting there thinking: how fucking weird.  

This is not THE bee. It's A bee. See?