Histamine
- Jan 14, 2022
- 3 min read
by Emily Behnke
She’s a woman who walks at dawn. Even when cold grates against her skin. Even though she is lonely. She walks early so she can be there for a knock at the door, if one comes. She is alive because of “if.” She hasn’t seen anyone in weeks, but spots of light glow in windows at night, so she knows she’s not alone. She’s hungry, so she walks. She’s read of people who can sense hunger in others, who live to feed, and she doesn’t believe they’re real because if they are, they would’ve found her by now. She’s so obvious about it. She walks hunched over with a hand on her belly, and she stays in all day, so she’s pale. She remembers being dragged to the doctor as a kid and there was always the loud woman behind the desk that said you can’t be sick, you look so healthy to everyone but her. No one ever said that to her. She walks to stop thinking about things like this, but it doesn’t always work. Her path is worn. No surprises. Smooth asphalt and a straight shot ahead. Doesn’t have to look down as she walks —
something cracks like a bone beneath her foot.
It’s not a bone. It’s a bee. The hard kind, not the fuzzy kind, thank god, because fuzzies feel like pets to her. The hard ones all seem like wasps, even if they aren’t, but she’s not scared of this one because it’s encased in a hardened amber honey, like it’s the treat at the center of a Tootsie Pop. All around it is crushed up, like the ball of her foot took a bite instead of a step, and the bee at the center is dead still. It’s sort of like a craft, she thinks, but like, a sick one. Someone had to have made it. It’s unnatural. But also, delightful. It gives her a crawly feeling and at the same time her mouth pools with hot saliva. Figs and candied crickets. Old lady candy. That hunger is in her, deeper than she realizes. So, she reaches out. Plucks it from the road and brings it to her lips. To have a piece of this place inside her—it would help, she thinks, with her loneliness. It would ingratiate her. She stands like a sculpture: head tipped back, bee-candy between index and thumb, lips parted.
And a gasp shocks her right out of the pose.
The first old man she’s seen in weeks is standing too close, staring at her. There’s no telling where he came from, just that he’s here. He vacuums up the air around them and she can hear it filter into his lungs, hear the murmur of his heart, hear the low noise of disgust wriggle from his throat.
They stare at each other. He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t have to. He wants her gone.
But she’s the one with a bee in her hand. There’s power in that—holding a place by its sharpest bit. The decision is made. He will bear witness.
She looks him in the eye, rolls her tongue out of her mouth and places the bee on it. It’s a domination she thinks he’s never encountered because he winces as if stung. They were heading in the same direction, each on their respective walks out of the neighborhood, toward Main Street. He rasps a phlegm-filled cough and walks away from her, continuing on.
She stays where she is, in her new home, the bee strange now, like a menthol lozenge on her tongue. She swallows it whole. Turns on her heel and walks back into the neighborhood. And as she does, she hears cabinets slam and windows rattle. Doors open.
Emily Behnke is a graduate of The New School’s MFA in Creative Writing Program. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and is featured/forthcoming in Tiny Molecules, Bear Creek Gazette, Peatsmoke Journal, and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a novel.
