Grandpa Bee

Every bee in the Orchard are diligent workers, they gather the sweets from each and every flower in the wide land. However that morning, the rain pours heavily so that every under-the-sun activity cannot be done.

The Owl sleeps soundly in a niche of a banyan tree. The swine also sleeps tightly in her whole under the flowery bush, accompanied by a group of butterflies who take shelter under the leaves and flowers. The bees are also gathering inside their huge hive which is hung in a branch of a jackfruit tree. The bees, just like the other animals, have no Sundays or holidays. They take a rest from their work of gathering sweets only in rainy days like this.

In a rainy morning like this, young bees, kiddy bees, and baby bees gather in the wide and dim-lighted common room, drink various choices of flower honey. They are busy warming themselves so that they continuously forget that Grandpa Bee sits alone in the corner of the room.

Grandpa Bee is a very old bee whose life is long and full. His black face is carved with furrowed wrinkles, just like a date fruit. His wings are rumpled and dull, no longer clear like they used to be. Grandpa Bee never flies too far in the orchard to draw honey nowadays. It is more often that he sits inside a buttercup, chewing the flower’s stamens while watching his grandchildren work hard drawing the sweet, sticky liquids into the hive.

Usually young bees takes shifts in nursing him in the morning, helping him to wake up from his wax powder bed, taking him to the door and seating him down inside a buttercup to bask in the sunlight. When Grandpa Bee already seems convenient in his seat, when his hands are already located in the right angle to get the stamens easily, the young bee will quickly leave him to be with his fellow young bees, to fly from flowers to flowers, and to draw the sweet, sticky, fragrant liquid.

In this rainy day Grandpa Bee is seated on a pillow made of purple lavender petals. He lies his elderly head against the warm wax wall. Hiss hazy eyes watch the herd of his grandchildren. The young bee who helped him has gone to enter the herd. The young bees are so energetic… they drink more and more honey… they are restless waiting the day shines again… Grandpa Bee, when his real name was still in use, also had the similar young herd. At his young time, there was an old bee called Grandpa Bee also. That old bee passed away. Then the younger bees grew old. Then one by one his friends died and faded, until he became the oldest bee in the colony. Without knowing it, he inherit the nick name, Grandpa Bee.

Those young bees… they are so busy growing up that they forget he is getting older.

Grandpa Bee closes his eyes. His wings go loose. His antenna slip off.

Somewhere in the Orchard, The Owl sleeps soundly in a niche of a banyan tree. The swine also sleeps tightly in her whole under the flowery bush, accompanied by a group of butterflies who take shelter under the leaves and flowers. Somewhere in the Orchard, amongst the heavy raindrops, a little buttercup bud blooms, opening its petals widely into a blossom, drawn by its curiosity of the new world it just enters.