Climbing On Mirrors

Chapter 11: Luciano

Romagna: 1846

On his return to the rookery that evening, Scarafaggio’s step was enlivened with almost a childlike vigor. He bounded through the woods, at times so incapable of containing his excitement that he burst forth into fits of leaping. There was so much he had to share with his Mammina this evening! He imagined it’s face when he revealed that humans at one time had served a male queen, that they had created false hives in which they held bees captive for the purpose of collecting their honey. What marvelous discoveries he held inside his head!

As he approached the rookery, he was surprised to find that Mammina was not waiting for him. Perhaps she’d been given some urgent task to attend to, as drones often were. He sent out his thoughts, scouring the tribù for Mammina.

It was a common thing among the Fatine, to cast out a net of thought until finally you had descried the one being among many whom was sought. Tonight however, he imagined this web as a swarm of stubborn little bees, spilling forth from his head and seeking out the flower of his Mammina. He imagined them swarming through the tribù, gathering in a rapturous and swirling tower about one or another of the Fatine, until they had at last dismissed them and flew off to continue they furious hunt.

He found that the intricate pattern of Mammina’s thoughts were nowhere to be found. He sent his bees out in broader circles, sweeping the surrounding woods and cities, yet Mammina was not there, the bloom of its much cherished mind somehow plucked from existence.

“Perhaps there will be time for me to explain those words to you too.” He recalled the drone saying.

“Why wouldn’t there be?” He’d launched back. “Where are you going?”

He felt the beckoning of fear worm its way under his skin, where it bred and multiplied till it’s wriggling progeny devoured every pleasure he’d held waiting in his skull to share. Near rabid under this consumptive dread, he hurried about the rookery, peering into the cells in which the drones lay. Each one frozen in their unblinking torpor of sleep, which for all the world, in that moment better resembled death.

His face having crossed into their line of sight, each drone snapped its head in turn to meet his eye.

“Go.”

“Leave us.”

“Run Away”

“Run!”

They spoke in his mind, filling his thoughts with images of himself fleeing through the woods, and back to the vinegto. There was an urgency in these visions, his chest burning from the gluttonous take of air his lungs demanded to keep this pace. His hurried feet had grown raw and ankles threatening collapse with the fall of each new step, yet his body was unrelenting, desperate to escape that which pursued him.

“Why, what is it?” His question was met with terrified silence.

At long last he found the cell in which his Mammina slept. It lay there, black eyes staring sightlessly into the dark, but it was alive. He was so overcome that he scooped the drone’s fragile body up into a hearty embrace, plastering it’s cheeks with kisses.

“Let go of me!” The drone demanded in a tone far harsher than he would have recognized from his Mammina.

He complied, loosening his entwined arms. Mammina shoved him away from itself, terror and disgust bled from it’s touch.

“Mammina! It’s me! Scarafaggio!” He insisted, trying to conjure a grin from the grimace he felt take hold of his lip.

“I am not Mammina.” The drone said, cowering as far away from this intruder as the cell wall would allow. “And I do not know you, no matter what word you call yourself.”