There's a dead bee on the stairs leading up to my apartment. A proper, fuzzy bee, mind you. None of this wasp crap. He's a very darkly coloured bee, against a fairly dark and patterned carpet, so the first time I saw him, I thought he was a clump of dirt. I'm not sure when exactly I realized he wasn't, but I remember being a little surprised. I mean, how did he get there? It's not inconceivable that a bee would fly into my building and die somewhere, but the stairs seems a weird place to do it. Also, has anyone else noticed him? In the early days, I shrugged my shoulders and figured he'd be vacuumed up soon enough.
I've been walking past this bee every day for at least two weeks now, very possibly longer. I take that particular staircase on my way back from working out, and every day as I make the approach, I wonder to myself if the dead bee is still there. I walk up, I look into that little left-hand corner on the seventh or eighth step, and there he lies, a husk of bee-ness forever lost.
I think I'm starting to feel some sense of affection for this dead bee.
Today I caught myself wondering if I should do something about him. His little bee-corpse is just sitting there, waiting to be ground into the carpet by some careless shoe, and that thought makes me a little sad. I have considered moving him on more than one occasion, but then what should I do with him? I think I'd feel guilty if I just threw him in the garbage, but what else does one do with a dead bee? Should I give him a proper burial? That just seems ridiculous. First off, it would require a special trip to the stairs, with a baggie or a piece of paper towel or something because I am NOT picking up a dead bee with my bare hands, followed by a concerted effort to pick up the dead bee and take it somewhere (likely one of the plants on my balcony) where I would dig a tiny hole, deposit the dead bee, and then bury him.
THEN WHAT?
Honestly, what kind of adult person in their right mind considers going to fetch a dead bee so that she can bury it, because she feels bad for its dead little bee-body lying on the stairs?
The only conclusion I can come to is that in the course of my exposure to the body, I've somehow become possessed by the spirit of the dead bee. Perhaps he was murdered and I need to suss out the perpetrator, or he needs me to deliver a message to his queen or something. I have no idea and he doesn't seem to be offering up answers. All I know is that there's a dead bee on the stairs, and he doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon.
