The Arrival Of The Bee Box

                There was a loud rapping at the door and Karen awoke with a jump. The bare beginnings of dusk could be seen through the half-drawn and grimy curtains, filling Karen with a sense of dread. Awake and back in reality, her heart dropped. She brushed away the hair sticking to her cheek and pulled herself clumsily from the sagging settee, knocking over a chipped mug of stale red wine.
                There was another impatient bang on the front door, so vigorous that the floor shook beneath Karen’s feet. The urgency and sudden volume caused her to feel bewildered and edgy, so she hurried across the hall kicking away old newspapers and piles of unwashed laundry as she went. It took her a few minutes of fumbling to undo the several locks and chains before she could heave open the aged cracked door.
                In the beam of a lone-standing streetlight just starting to flicker pink stood a stocky middle-aged man dressed in a pale blue uniform. He was shifting restlessly from foot-to-foot, frustrated at having to wait, and holding a clipboard in his stout arms that were generously decorated with faded tattoos of skewered hearts, skulls and dragons.  Feeling her neck twinge, Karen looked up at him, blinking confusedly as she struggled to fully regain her senses.
               “Special delivery for a Miss Karen Black,” he bellowed formally, looking pointedly at a large parcel standing on the top step behind him.
               “Dr.” Karen corrected quietly. “It’s Dr. Black.” She had to lean sharply to her left to peer round him at the mysterious-looking package. She contemplated asking the man what was in the box, but it tired her to talk to people and his deep sighs made her aware that he wasn’t one to be sociable either. Karen was thankful for this, but felt guilty for being so. She took the pen and clipboard from his outstretched hand and scrawled her signature across the page, watching her hand move curiously as though it wasn’t attached to her but rather had a mind of its own.
                Muttering under his breath, the delivery man turned away without saying goodbye and stumbled awkwardly down the stone steps. The gate creaked behind him and he walked briskly along the street vanishing into the shadows of the old Victorian terraces. Karen wandered cautiously over to the parcel and knelt down to examine it. The cardboard box displayed a stamp marked ‘Africa’ and her name and address had been carefully printed on with a large black marker. There was a small gust of wind, and shivering she decided to take the parcel inside. It was heavy, and she had to exert herself just to drag the box across the step and into the hallway.
              Once the package was safely inside the house she was able to crouch down and have a proper look, tucking a lock of brown hair behind her ear. Careful not to get dust on her work clothes - a smart, neat cardigan and skirt (Karen was watchful not to give her patients and colleagues any cause for concern about her true well-being) she sliced open the thick brown tape seal with her fingernails and glanced inside. There she saw a large wooden chest. The chest was made of mahogany with sturdy black bolts hammered in at intervals, but most noticeably and very alarmingly to Karen was the terrible racket coming from within it. Her fingers turned white at the frantic attempt to open it, but it had been locked securely and no key could be found hidden in the outer packaging.
              Karen lugged the chest into the darkest corner of the dimly lit front room, feeling the moistness of the sticky spilt wine underfoot. It was much darker outside now, and the streetlight shone a bright yellow, casting eerie shadows of the bare branches outside across the dingy, peeling walls. The sound of chaotic buzzing inside the sinister-looking box was almost unbearable. Karen noticed a small grid in the curved lid of the box and leaned over to stare inside. Nothing could be seen but darkness, but there was an overwhelming sense that whatever was inside the box was alive, and almost crazy in its desire to get out.
             Crawling heavily to the farthest corner away from the box, she sat shaking behind the settee with her knees drawn to her chest. The box in the corner seemed as though it was about to burst from all the pressure inside it, almost like the outraged army of bees would attack at any moment. The intense buzzing appeared to be getting louder and louder, reaching an ear-aching crescendo when Karen wondered whether the buzzing was coming from the box or whether it had penetrated her skull and was running riot within her own brain. She clasped her hands forcefully over her ears and began rocking in distress, face white and shoulders trembling. A spider scuttled across her foot from beneath the crumbling yellowed skirting board and the tickling feeling made her breathing accelerate.
             The swarming from inside the threatening chest showed no signs of ceasing or even calming down and Karen felt terrified that the contents of the box were destined to destroy her. After all, who had sent these monstrous maniacs to her? It occurred to Karen that the creatures in the darkened corner opposite her were the epitome of disgusting evil, and that whoever or whatever had exported them from Africa specifically to her address wanted to cause her serious harm.
             These thoughts escalated her anxiety to a state of sheer horror, and she began whimpering and crying, energy coursing through her veins until she felt as though the bones in her fingers would split right through the skin on her fingertips and carry on growing. Gazing up through the blurriness of the tears in her eyes she was overwhelmed by the sense of being suffocated; the walls appeared to be pulsating and slowly moving closer towards her.
              Panic and hyperventilating making her dizzy, she clambered to her feet and began pounding and scratching hysterically on the walls, desperately seeking evidence or answers behind her disturbing thoughts. The activity inside the box, the wild conversation of the foreign contents, echoed the insane chattering of the thoughts swirling around in Karen’s brain.
              Exhausted from the frantic crying, and her increasing confusion and blinding terror, she retreated to her position on the cold, dusty wooden floor, running her fingers apprehensively through her hair. Her head was thumping, an intense shooting ache in her forehead caused her to gasp in agony and she noticed coloured spots flashing in her eyes. On her knees, she watched her hands scrabbling amongst dead wood-lice and clumps of crusted plaster on the floor, trying to support her weight as giddiness and pain overwhelmed her.
              Once the migraine had passed, and shattered by the chaos of the evening, Karen leaned back on her heels and tried to regain her rationality. She decided that she couldn’t be ill; she’d been finding it difficult to cope recently and get out of bed in the morning (sometimes she’d stay up all night sitting on the bottom stair and watch the shadows move across the ceiling, waiting to feel her eyelids drop and fall into a slumber filled with the most disturbingly graphic of nightmares) and she admitted that she’d been feeling low and drinking wine to help her to function, but that was all; she couldn’t be mad, doctors don’t go mad. Especially not psychiatrists.  It was pitch black outside now and Karen realised that the humming from inside the chest would never desist. She was becoming more used to her visitors, but they remained unbearable to her and she decided that they must be dealt with quickly. Taking deep breaths, as she often advised her patients to do in similar situations, she felt her lungs sting from the chill of the air. It was all about control.
              Leaning over, Karen switched on a lamp, which popped and flickered once or twice before a soft orange glow illuminated the room. The base of her spine throbbed from being pressed against the skirting board so she placed a rather tatty and faded cushion behind her back, and squeezed her toes trying to rid them of the cold-induced numbness. Biting her lip she glanced over at the box. The bees buzzed furiously as though they were discussing what was to be done about her, like they had been trained to carry out a dreadful act of wickedness on whoever was on the other side of their prison. The threat of their plotting confused Karen as she struggled to comprehend what they were saying. She felt immense anger toward them, fuelled by her fear and tiredness. At that moment, she despised the bees. She despised their heavy wooden box that was so coffin-like in appearance that is seemed to suggest her doom; and she hated the person who had sent it to her, the person who, as far as she was aware, had no connection to her and therefore she decided that the bees had nothing to do with her other than the fact that they sat in her living room scaring the living daylights out of her. This meant that they were not her responsibility.
             The anger was such that it boiled inside Karen’s stomach, growling and seething like a pressure-cooker about to explode. It manifested itself as a scream stuck in her throat, burning with rage but unable to pass her lips. She gritted her teeth and stared at the box. She couldn’t understand how they dared to chatter amongst themselves as though they had control over her. They had no control locked inside their hellish compound - they were in her possession and she was in charge.
               Whispering to herself in the darkness, Karen comforted herself with plans of the hideous animals’ demise. Although she knew that she could not stand to leave the bees inside the chest until they asphyxiated one-by-one, nor that she could murder each one individually causing them the pain and despair that she felt, she was aware that she could release them. She would not let them turn against her, there was no reason that they should as she had nothing that they could want.
              Karen pulled herself under the coffee table that was pushed up against the wall, putrid with woodworm, and curled up in a foetal position. If she hid, she thought, then they could not find her. On setting them free she could pretend she was non-existent, morphing into nature and camouflaged behind the everyday façade of perfect health and happiness. In the morning, Karen considered she would unlock the box and become invisible to interfering eyes.
              In the morning, everything would be beautiful again.