I was strolling through the mall one evening at the beginning of the holidays when a window display unexpectedly jogged a memory. A stick-on display in a women’s clothing store featured a large pair of patterned wings that could have been inspired by either a butterfly or an angel. I thought first of a butterfly but then realized that the winged creature I was recalling was actually a bee. It happened like this: In my myth studies program, we had a class in Irish mythology and storytelling, and one of my classmates told a story involving a bee (the particulars of which I can’t remember). She handed out to each of us a small cardboard cutout of a bee, and I took mine home as a memento.
Why that particular pair of wings in the window reminded me of my classmate’s bee I don’t really know. At first, I thought I was remembering the handout as a butterfly, a symbol of the soul, until further reflection brought the rest of the story to light. Instead of putting the bee on a shelf somewhere once I got it home, I had decided to take it into work with me. I remember thinking that the heaviness that seemed to have settled over my office might be alleviated for me, at least slightly, by the presence of this little bee, which I left on the counter in the break room. I viewed it as kind of a talisman of good will and good luck, and I thought that it might also bring a small sense of delight to anyone else who saw it and wondered how it had gotten there. I don’t remember if I told anyone else what I had done, but I don’t think I did. I saw it as a kind of under-the-radar thing.
I thought I would leave the bee there for a while as a sort of magical object, free of charge, for anyone who might notice it. I was taken by surprise when I saw, the next time I went into the break room, that somehow someone else had picked it up and run with it, as it were, by moving the bee and placing it so deliberately in an odd location (perhaps on top of the hot water dispenser or among the tea bags) that it was impossible to think it had gotten there by accident. I moved it to another location, just as deliberately, and there followed a sort of dance between me and an unknown person (or persons) in which the cardboard bee was the connection. The next time I came into the break room, it might be sitting on its head among the swizzle sticks; I might next tip it on one wing and prop it against the soap dispenser. It was a little like passing a paint brush back and forth, though I never actually saw anyone move it, and I didn’t think the other person knew I was moving it either.
It’s hard to describe how this affected my feelings about being in the office. At a difficult time (which was to become much more difficult later, though I didn’t know it then), it was a little magical opening, a feeling of being at play, that I had never felt in the office before, even at the best of times. Someone was responding to my gesture with creativity and humor, and I had never expected that to happen. There was some kind of a meeting of the minds (or perhaps, more accurately, of the souls) taking place, and for some reason the entire episode made me feel that someone perhaps understood me and was validating my impulse to bring the bee into the office. I wondered who was doing it, but I didn’t really want to know. The mystery just added to the ludic quality of the game.
I can’t remember how long this went on, only that it happened in the summer, and that it made me feel better about going into work every day while it lasted. Then one day, the bee was gone. At the time, it made me sad: I thought someone had just thrown it away, and that seemed such an abrupt end to what had been a harmless but nonetheless engaging distraction. All these years later, I now wonder if in fact that is what happened, or if my mysterious interlocutor decided to keep the bee for some reason. It only occurred to me recently that stranger things might have been happening in the office than I was ever aware of—and perhaps not all of them bad, though there was plenty of that, too. You’d probably be amazed if I told you everything I’m thinking about that long ago time . . . a face wise beyond its years that comes into focus from somewhere in my memory, an overheard conversation, an inexplicably sad farewell that I am—rightly or wrongly—now associating with the episode of the bee.
In my mind, I think I have solved the mystery, though I can hardly believe it myself and am certain I was far from being the only one oblivious to a mysterious presence in our midst. Possibly, there was more than one mysterious presence there over time, not all of which were benevolent—though this one was. Sometimes, very significant things might be happening while you are thinking about something else entirely, and you might never be the wiser were it not for a small cardboard bee and a few smatterings of memory.
Am I right or am I wrong? To be determined . . .
