The Illumination of Queen Bees

Dearest reader,

My situations really have improved since last week. I've received a bit of inspiration and almost have a story done for the open submission for Cross Genera Magazine. I'm really excited cause after being a in a dry spell for the last two months it hasn't been easy. It's not like I'm just pouring out words like they simply can't be contained (though that is really amazing and I love when that happens) but it's not like I'm trying to extract blood from a stone. So that's good. I hope to send out a portion of it it for this months Lunacy Project. Sign up for this month (or for a year?) if you'd like to have a little story to read come this Saturday -which is this months full moon.

For those interested in what its about: it's a story about a woman looking back on her life, the magic she's made, the lives she's impacted, dignity, and choice. Should be a little controversial but hey, I'm not writing for children here. I think we can discuss sticky issues and raw topics through many means and stories (fictional or other-wise) are excellent places with our culture to have these discussions.

In other news Pill Hill Press, the publisher for the anthology I've been published by is no longer in business. This is a sad day. They really gave so many new authors the chance to show their work, myself being one of them. I wish the editors over at PHP the best of luck. I send them my love and luck.

This does mean that I have the rights to my story back. Therefore, instead of attempting to resell the story to another publisher, I have chosen to publish it on my own website and it is free to you. You can read it right off the site or can download a free PDF version. If you are so inclined to throw a few bucks my way I've put up a $1.00 donation button on the page. This will help pay for the website hosting services so it would be greatly appreciated. I really do hope you enjoy the story. I enjoyed writing it and am very proud of it. I really do consider it the first stepping stone to being considered a published author and that is why I'm really happy I'm able to bring it to you. 

Thank you all and have a great week!

A Forest of Courage in print... or so to speak et alt

My new piece, A Forest of Courage, is featured in the May 2012 edition of With Painted Words. It's short, less an 1,000 words, so check it out. With Painted Words was the first magazine to publish my work and I am so grateful to them for choosing another of my short stories. Support them and their contributors and supports (i.e. Pill Hill Press i.e. the people who published my story The Illumination of Queen Bees) with moneys or words of encouragement.  

P.S. BUGS! (the anthology where you may find The Illumination of Queen Bees) I've been told will be available for kindle/nook/e-readers someday. I thought that it would be available soon after its release but that seems not to be the case. If you don't want to buy a hard copy, you can help all of us contributors by easily clicking on the "Tell the Publisher" button on this page.

P.S.S. It is summer once again and I be working hard at Red Goose Gardens. This also means I will be updating the blog more often then... never... which has been the trend. So add me to your RSS feed. I'll be posting short segments of thing I will be submitting, the little bits of imaginative non-sense that form during my long hours in the fields, and general updates on what's going on I my life.  Check back often for a little bit of everything.

The Queens Final Breath

The Queen was escorted to the brood hives to lay her final egg. Into this prefect and golden hexagon she poured all her royal jelly. For the next six days, she sat besides the future queen and retold the whole of her life. She pushed the story of herself and her reign though the royal jelly spiked with scents like delphinium and lavender, clover and buckwheat, apple and rose petals. It was pungent with salt and mead. It was thick and hot like the ant-oil. It was bright like an epiphany.

She poured the entirety of herself into the cell in hopes that her dreams and her drive would penetrate the soft white body of her truest of children. It was as close as she could get to living forever. Bees like bacterium, whales, humans, and snakes want to live forever and so they do whatever they can to become like the gods and goddesses of old, immortal. They tell stories to their young about themselves and their history in hopes that when their body has released the soul that they might continue to work here on earth. Some do it out of fear. Some do it out of a biological urge. Others do it because they want to see their reflection in their child’s bright and immaculate face. Bee’s fall somewhere in between this triangle of self preservation. Death to a Queen is her final act and she will never again get to the chance to send a chemical message or dance a command in which to enact her will and there for fears insufficient amounts of nectar will be collected. She feels a compulsion to work, being a creature of engineering and industry and hopes her queendom will not fall into rune when her body becomes nothing more than a chitin shell  on the forest floor. In the shining pool of jelly she sees her mirroring eyes and her child all at the same time. And with a final breath like prayer to the new queen, she exhales and the humming of her engine heart halts like the grinding of rusted gears.

Animalistic Attributes

The kingdom of animalia contains a great multitude of creatures, all whom reflect the virtues and evils of the human experience. Take the lion for example. See how his pelt reflects the prefect golden rays of the sun. Her roar is like that of dictator’s demands and it will not be denied. Therefore lions have the adoration of nobility and those who take pride in simplicity of being alive. Or take the swallow family (Hirundinidae) who are all attributed the principles of physics. The common barn swallow reflects velocity and the Black Saw-Wing for speed. The Wire-Tailed Swallow with its tail like two needles holds bilateral direction in its iconography; the Sand Martin is the embodiment of acceleration. The only exception to this universal rule is the Purple Martin, who did not care much for the science. On the day the Purple Martin was created, she chose to be the patron saint to those who live in tenements, a omen to landlords and dukes, and a symbol for vanity for children and first year students in any discipline. 

But what of the insects who scudded across the sea floor and methodically climb up trees or burro into the soil? Do all moths and wasps and ladybugs bless the professions of pilots or aeronauts? Of course bugs and all thing things that creep towards your bare feet in long summer days are no different from the lions or swallows or three-toed sloths  who obviously rules over the lazy but also patronage the world of fungi, chefs, and farmers in winter to a lesser degree. 

So why should you believe me that the creatures of the air, the earth, and the sea are connected to deeds and behaviors of us highly evolved and complex beings. Plainly said, you shouldn’t. But know this; Should you look at a monarch butterfly and see nothing more than orange and black pulsing against the blue sky, then I shall tip my straw hat in your general direction and wish you a good lunch and a productive afternoon. But realize that you have been blessed by this insect with its powers of endurance, its Capricornian nature, and that report due at 3:00PM will get done forty-four minutes sooner than if you had not caught mosaic wings out of the corner of your hazel eyes. You see but this is one example of how our friends with six legs and segmented bodies help us even though they will infiltrate our sugar jars and make nest below the eves at times.