matt pond PA

November 3, 2018

This is a confidential picture of a beehive.

This is a confidential picture of a beehive. As merely a simulacrum of synchronicity, it doesn’t contain the scope or significance. It’s going to take more than a passing glance to pierce this vision.

I’m on an Amtrak train, shielding my face from the conductor. A pressed gray suit, Havana Gold Carrera sunglass, no one can see through my incognito iciness. I am heading to the city, smuggling this image to you. If I make it, if I find you, if you see it — you will understand.

Every half hour, I have to set the bees free in the locomotive bathroom. They can’t stand being trapped in the paper. I casually lurch down the aisle as if I were a normal person, slide the door shut and they swarm. The buzzing leaves my skull, a flock of dark thoughts drains down into the blue toilet water. I flush and laugh with the bees.

The bees fly back inside the page. I have to make it to you. I know you’ll understand. These bees are so far beyond my scratchy voice, the infinitely flawed persona I’ve assumed. Even stationary, they continue to waggle and dance.

I return to my seat and make sure no one’s on to me. I use the shiny edge of a switchblade as a mirror to secure the perimeter. The metal catches sunlight and flashes, light moving across the carriage ceiling, alive, the spirit of a single fearless drone, out in the world alone.

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