I have always been a happy man.
The kind of man who whistled while buttering toast, who waved at neighbors and remembered their kids' names. The kind who believed every problem had a solution, every heartache a lesson. Even on cloudy days, I saw silver linings. People called me an optimist. I called it clarity.
Life was beautiful. My wife, Elise, adored me. Our home sat nestled between singing trees and polite laughter, on a cul-de-sac where nothing bad ever happened. I worked from home, a comfortably vague "consultant," and never missed a paycheck. Our dog, Bailey, never barked at night. Birds sang in the morning, and sunsets were always just the right hue of gold.
I'd never known pain deeper than a stubbed toe or a lost umbrella. I had friends. Routine. Peace.
Then I met the beekeeper.
It started on a Tuesday, I think. Though time's started to stretch for me, like taffy left too long in the sun.
That morning, I went for my walk—the same five blocks, the same smiles, the same waving mailman. But as I rounded the corner near old Mrs. Garvey's hydrangeas, I noticed something new: a man in a broad straw hat, standing behind a black iron gate where a vacant lot used to be.
He was tending hives.
Hundreds of them, like wooden coffins stacked in rows. Bees buzzed in lazy spirals, and the air shimmered faintly with gold. I don't remember walking toward him, only that suddenly I was at the gate, watching.
"You're new," I said cheerfully. "Welcome to the neighborhood."
He looked up. His eyes were pale—not blue, not gray, but colorless, like diluted milk. He smiled slowly, revealing too many teeth.
"They're not new," he said. "You just forgot."
"Excuse me?" I chuckled awkwardly. "This lot's been empty for years."
He didn't respond. Just returned to his bees, humming softly.
I left, unsettled. But even unease felt distant in my perfect world. Maybe I'd never noticed the lot. Maybe he'd just moved in quietly.
Still, that night, I dreamed of honey. Thick, golden rivers of it, dripping from cracks in the ceiling, the floor, my hands. I woke with the taste in my mouth—sweet, but wrong.
Over the next few days, I saw him more. The beekeeper. Always at the edge of things. At the supermarket, by the park, across the street. Never closer than a whisper, always watching. And always that buzz, rising behind my ears like tinnitus made of wings.
I asked Elise if she'd seen him.
"Who?" she said, sipping tea in the sunlight of our flawless kitchen.
"The man with the bees."
"There's no beekeeper around here, sweetheart." She smiled. "Maybe you dreamed him."
I didn't press. Why ruin a morning with nonsense? But the buzzing grew louder.
Then came the cracks.
It started with the dog. Bailey vanished one afternoon during our walk. One moment at my side, the next—gone. I called for hours, posted flyers, even combed the woods behind the school.
But no one remembered him.
"Elise," I said that night, my voice tight, "Bailey's gone. We have to do something."
She blinked. "Who's Bailey?"
"Our dog!"
Her eyes narrowed with something like confusion—or calculation. "We've never had a dog, love."
I laughed, but it caught in my throat. "Yes, we have. He's been with us for five years."
"No, dear." She took my hand. "You must've dreamed him. Stress, maybe."
But stress didn't explain the leash still hanging by the door. Or the scratch marks on the back patio.
Or the faint smell of wet fur that clung to my clothes.
Something was wrong.
The world began to shimmer around the edges, like heat rising off pavement. Street signs changed subtly. Familiar stores bore unfamiliar names. My best friend, Jared, called me by the wrong last name during lunch.
"You okay?" he asked, sipping his beer. "You've been distant lately."
I stared at him. "Did you just call me 'Robert Halloway'?"
"That's your name, isn't it?"
"No. It's… it's Daniel. Daniel Keene."
He frowned. "You feeling alright, Rob?"
I stood, knocking my drink over. "That's not my name."
I ran.
I returned to the beekeeper.
His gate was open now, and the buzzing was deafening. The air rippled, as if reality itself recoiled around him.
"Why are things changing?" I demanded. "Why doesn't anyone remember?"
He didn't look up. Just reached into a hive, pulled free a dripping comb, and held it out to me.
"Would you like a taste?" he asked. "You've already had so much."
I stepped back. "What is this?"
"Your life," he said, voice as smooth as wax. "Sweet, artificial, curated. A construct, built from longing. You wanted happiness. So you were given it."
"I built this life!" I protested. "I worked for everything I have!"
He looked at me finally, and the smile dropped from his face like a mask.
"No, Daniel. You were harvested."
The world convulsed. For a split second, everything peeled.
I saw Elise's face flicker like a broken screen. I saw the trees outside twist, not in the wind, but in recognition. I saw the sun blink.
And I remembered.
The accident.
Years ago. A car crash. Rain. Screams. A smell of burning plastic. I had died. Or should have.
The beekeeper stepped closer. His eyes pulsed with light, like hives teeming with thought.
"You were found. Caught in the folds between. Broken, but salvageable. So we gave you a cocoon. A perfect delusion. And you thrived."
"Why?" I whispered.
"Because your mind is rich," he said. "Emotionally dense. Sweet. Like nectar. We feed on such minds. Not by destroying them, but by milking them. Sustainably."
He gestured to the hives.
Each pulsed faintly.
Each whispered my voice.
I fell to my knees. "This isn't real."
"It was never meant to be."
The world was not a neighborhood. Not a town. It was a structure. An organic maze shaped by comfort and desire, constructed to keep me docile while they harvested the chemicals of contentment from my brain.
"I want out," I said.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "Out means pain. Out means truth. And there is no going back."
I hesitated.
The life I'd lived—wasn't it good? Even if it was false?
Elise's smile. The warmth of my morning walks. The laughter.
But none of it was mine.
"I want out," I said again. Firmer.
He nodded, almost sad. "Then the hive must die."
He reached into his chest and pulled free a sliver of wax shaped like a key.
"Swallow this."
It burned.
The world imploded.
---
I woke up in a hospital.
The real world was gray. Dirty. The air reeked of antiseptic and mildew. Tubes ran from my arms. Machines beeped. My muscles ached.
A nurse gasped. Then called for doctors.
I'd been in a coma. For six years.
No Elise. No Bailey. No cul-de-sac.
Just me. And a hole in my soul where happiness used to live.
---
They say I'm recovering well. Physically, at least. Emotionally… I'm hollow. I smile at the doctors. I thank the staff. But I feel like something's missing.
Not from this world.
From that one.
Sometimes, late at night, I still hear the buzzing.
Sometimes I dream of the beekeeper.
And I wonder—did I really escape?
Or did they simply build another layer, deeper this time, harder to crack?
A more convincing honeycomb?
And am I still feeding them?
Sweetly.
Willingly.
Forever.
End
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Was watching the Matrix and thinking about bees