The Bee Keeper's Fever Dream

Devan Sagliani

January 2006

They will never know expression through such coarse means.

They don’t need to.

"That's it, big boy."

She patted me gently on the back as she cooed. Speaking during sex had been her new introduction to the bedroom, to liven things up. It had been part of the agreement.

"Give me all you got."

Children had been the other. We would try extra special hard to get pregnant, together, and bring a little life into the world. We would not talk about the number of sudden infant deaths in Somalia last year.

"Deeper in. I want a boy."

I had been allowed to go back to DataCorp, where my lack of physical presence had completely shattered my previously undisputed hegemony.

I was now working for James Tralmer and he didn't seem to have the same sense of humor I had once remembered him having.

I was now looking at figures on poppy production in Afghanistan and Eastern Bloc quadriplegic rape statistics all day long.

Jokes during coffee break were told to the spot on the wall I had designated instead of actual people. No one pretended to think I was funny anymore. They didn’t have to.

Productivity meetings were like closed sessions of Congress to me. The other employees all gawked at me as if they knew, as if my cuckolding had somehow caused her death, as if I had strangled my mother-in-law with some newfound psychic powers.

‘Prolong this,’ I thought, thrusting discordantly with sweaty hips and raspy groans. ‘Think of anything.’

I wanted to crawl back into the oyster, back into the fissure, worm my way back into the world we lost, the world that Plato described beyond the cave.

I wanted to crawl back into the fracturing that is the soul of the world.

I wanted to be a better person but I am pretty sure that I am beyond therapy now and I think we both know it.

I don’t think this is working out.

I don’t think I am going to be coming in anymore.

I think this is the last time I am going to be writing in this journal.

Nothing you suggested to me is working. Talking about all of my feelings, talking about my wife cheating on me only made me feel worse.

‘Think of baseball.’

‘Think of premeditated clown murder statistics in Akron, think of their dramatic rise since April in southern states.’

‘Think of the ratio of Siamese twin births contrasted against the number of rainforest acres decimated per second.’

‘Think of any of the meaningless figures that you collect every day with your eyes on those closed doors, scheming.’

The soul of the world is opening again, letting me in, swallowing me up.

I am going home, one way or another, and nothing we can talk about has any affect on that.

"That's a good little boy. Keep it up."

‘Think of the immaculate revenge you will one day exact upon the world, upon your coworkers, upon your very wife.’

‘Think of the Childers, of their state of suspended animation, their permanent happiness you can’t seem to achieve.’

‘Think of the future.’

"Just a little more, puppy dog. Keep panting."

‘Think of the clinic that Childers told you about, the fantastic irony of it, the simple procedure.’

‘Think of the first few days after the original incident and how she never even tried to touch you down there once during the next two weeks, not even in marriage counseling, how she never knew you had done it.’

‘Think about how holding hands was enough for her then.’

You told her she had to respect my privacy and she did.

She never knew the first thing about my surgery.

She never has to.

This is about control.

Outpatient surgery, that's what they called it.

I know that now.

Revolutionary, that's what they told me it was.

I am being brutally honest.

Contingencies, that’s what I thought.

I am in control.v

"That's it. Don't stop. I can feel you pulsing inside of me."

The force of the ejaculate released me from hearing her for real this time, even if it was virginal, even if it was only sugar and saline instead of raw life.

I had healed from my vasectomy in less than a few days, leaving plenty of time for golf.

I had given up on trying to undermine James with talks to Bob.

I was forgetting the key phrases of the Monday speech.

It was a world so uniform that nothing was ever out of place.

This is about my marriage, but not in the way that you think it would be.

I just want my relationship with my wife to be something I can depend on.

Something has mended in the world for me.

I have gained something for my loss.

I felt like I was floating in amniotic fluid.

I don’t need you anymore and for that I am grateful.

I thought about how penitent she became when her mother died. How she became the woman I had once loved again, renouncing her desires to go to law school, forgoing her time with Howard.

Howard was just another myth.

Howard was never real to her.

Howard was a wake up call for me, she said, a desperate cry to get my attention.

I used to love my wife more than I thought it was possible to love another human being and I want to feel that way again someday, even if I don’t want to bring a child into this world.

They can undo the procedure, they told me. I didn’t see the need.

There are several factors that determine the eviction of drones from the

hive.

I thought about how I was released from the oppression of having to make dinner.

An abundance of pollen will prevent drone eviction.

I thought about how being in love, even the facsimile of it, was like being back inside the soul of the world and feeling its heartbeat.

So will the absence of the Queen Bee.

She rocked back and forth with her knees held to her breasts, like she had seen in a movie, humming. The serene and placid look on her face almost made me want to tell her the truth, almost made me want to relinquish control.

No. I am an immaculate, perfect drone again, functioning at peak output.

At last I am totally in control of my destiny.

Devan Sagliani holds a BA in English from the University of California Los Angeles. His fiction has appeared in Word Riot, Impetus, Outsider Ink, and Thirst For Fire.

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