Beekeeper

​She was an odd one to be sure. Beekeeping in this day and age is a rare, but necessary hobby. So many wish to have honey, in cafe businesses especially since it was used a sweetener. Delilah, on the other hand, did not reap the reward for other, but for herself. She kept bees and she kept secrets.

There was a curious child who decided to take advantage of his weekend and spend it spying on Delilah, the beekeeper. His name was Oscar. Oscar would sit in a tree not to far from Delilah’s home and watch her through binoculars. He would eat jam that he bought from the supermarket. His hands would grow sticky and his teeth would ache, but to him, spying on Delilah was his brilliant idea of fun.

Of course, when Delilah happened to feel the eyes of the young boy on her, the tall, elderly woman turned in time to spy the glint of the binoculars. Immediately, she assumed that somebody was watching her with creeping eyes, but she needed to confirm. Ever so carefully she moved behind one of the bushes she tripped and stared through the gaps at the tree.

Delilah was shocked, but delighted to see it was a naive child and immediately her bright mind began creating a cunning plan. She returned to her home and began collecting a manner of instruments that would pose an idea in the imaginative child’s mind. When she walked back to her beehives she began taking them apart and with her back to Oscar, planting strange objects she had collected indoors.

Indeed, to Oscar, this was strange and immediately his jam-covered jaw dropped. With curiosity peaking, young oscar decided to pay a visit to the bee farm later that night. When dark had fallen, Oscar made his way down the street paying careful attention when passing his neighbour who was known throughout the neighbourhood to be incredibly nosy.

Once past her house Oscar climbed over Delilah’s fence and approached one of the boxes that Delilah kept the bees. There was a small lock in the box but it had long since rusted to nothing more than a chunk of faulty metal. It didn’t take much for the child to remove the lock and open the box. As he did he jumped back in surprise. The bees all seemed dead, but a quick sniff of the air told him they had been smoked.

Ignoring this, he brought his head closer to examine the slats. The bees writhed in a drowsy state, unable to fly towards the young boy, but observe him through darkened eyes. Oscar, now playing the detective, tried to figure out what Delilah was stowing away in the boxes. Soon, the boy found there were cracks in the comb and certainly there was something peeking out between the comb, glazed in honey.

Oscar, a fan of jam and not impartial to honey, was not afraid to break away the comb and see what was inside. He even went as far as to try some of it and enjoyed it immensely. However, the child was dismayed to touch something that felt incredibly warm and immediately drew his fingers. The honeycomb fell apart revealing a decaying face. The eyes were rotted, the skin peeled off by the mouths of the bees. The honey that covered his fingers was made from that of the body hidden within and this horrified him deeply.

Oscar whimpered in fright and immediately ran home with his tail between his legs. Delilah, who had been watching him from the gap in one of her curtains, smiled cruelly as the boy sprinted out of her garden and immediately gathered her things before pursuing. Oscar would not let himself slow down for a moment and soon he made it home, slamming the door shut and locking it without thought.

The fearful child collected a jam jar from the kitchen and washed his hands while he had a moment. The disgust that writhed through him could only be dampened by sugar. Entering his room he could hear his parents waking up. He sat on his bed shaking and began eating. As his father’s footsteps approached he began working out the story to tell, but just as his father reached for the doorknob to his room the doorbell rang.

The fear within Oscar had broken the peak and now his heart fell to the floor. The child’s body slid off the bed and he slinked beneath it to eat his jam in hiding. A few minutes later he heard his father calling him. Afraid at first he hesitated, but then his father gave him his only warning. Oscar feared a grounding more than death, so he climbed down the steps and met his father in the living room.

All seemed well until to his horror, Oscar’s father had invited Delilah into the house. In her arms was another head, disfigured by decay. Oscar leapt back, straight into his father. Delilah and the father laughed. Oscar’s father comforted his child and explained to him the full story.

Delilah used to work for hollywood as a makeup artist and prop designer. The head that Oscar had found and the head in her arms was a simple prop that she had created in her spare time now that she was retired.

Delilah told Oscar that she saw him spying on her and decided to play a small prank on him. True, it was a disturbing one, but one that Delilah as well as Oscar’s felt quite necessary. After a short discussion on why spying was wrong, Oscar left the living room with an important lesson in mind and feeling a lot calmer. With that, Delilah bid the family a good night and left the house feeling a lot better.

It was good that Oscar had learned a lesson in all of this. Delilah hated to be spied on, especially in her old age. She wanted the security that nobody was watching her, otherwise they might learn that not every head was a prop.