Death to Bumble Bees

2: bee vs hallucinations

TW: brief passing mentioning of s*xual harassment, drug abuse, self harm, and lots of uncanny valley examples

Listen to: Crazy=Genius by Panic! At the Disco

Chapter Two: Bee vs. Hallucinations

If you had told Bee that she was about to experience the weirdest and most confusing moment of her life, she probably would have just shrugged.

In her mind, weird was normal. That being said, people could only normalize things they could imagine. Bee, like any other human, could not have imagined something this strange and unfamiliar. Even Bee had a limit to her imagination.

The living and Death were not supposed to exist together in one plane. But Rath didn't follow instructions very well. The laws of Earth never applied to him the same way it did to others and he would go so far as to enjoy the slight chaos him being there would cause. It was always so... unpredictable. And that was quite the rare sensation when you've unlived for an infinite amount of time.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here, this is about Bee, not Rath.

As one does when the only parent they have left hates them, Bee didn't go home much. Her mother had long since given up on being a mother. So, Bee just learned how to cope without one. The night started off the same: fresh from the police station, she found herself at her favourite little destination down the street.

Tally Bay's Diner.

The place was like watching a natural disaster. Frequent sounds of spills and breaks lingered in the air, a swear or two following the thunder-like crashes. If she inhaled through her nose, she would surely smell that very distinguishable burnt smell like lightening had struck the kitchen. And no matter the time of day or night, the grease particles so thoroughly drenched the place she could practically taste the food as she sniffed. Best of all, without fail, she'd catch a customer sexually harassing one of the waitresses, only to get punched in the face so hard by the hostess, the landing fist would ricochet off his jaw (she liked the punching part, not the sexual harassment part). That too, would commence the rumbling roll of clouds as they shouted and screamed until the disrespectful grown man of a customer ran out after being sprayed with the club-soda hose on hand at the bar.

It was practically a dinner and a show—and all without paying the extra expense for the entertainment. It was pure, beautiful chaos. A perfect stormy ecosystem.

If Rath could have peeked inside of her brain, he surely would have agreed. Chaos, as mentioned, was kind of his thing.

Anyways, back to Bee.

As Bee sat in the booth next to the window (her usual spot), she watched as the orange sunset outside darkened into a dusky night sky above the diner. The pink and yellow neon sign that read 'Tally Bay's Diner' glowed in the wet atmosphere, the rain shower from a few moments earlier creating a sparkling, alien-like shimmer onto the asphalt.

Bee loved the rain. She loved how the usual hot air became muggy and cool, and how she imagined she could feel the Earth's rhythmic heartbeat within the sound of water dripping. With water being the one thing all living things needed, it was as if she were inhaling the energy that tethered earth together. Like she was breathing in strength and exhaling out weakness.

Resting her cheek against the cold red tabletop, she could hear the nearby shouting in the kitchen—the fight over who thought it would be funny to put the sugar in the salt shaker. She snickered to herself just as she felt the table jolt very suddenly. Picking her head up only enough so that she could rest her chin instead of her cheek on the smooth maroon table, her eyebrows flinched upwards.