The Sting of a Honeybee

At first it was gradual, like the slow drip from a leaky faucet, then it swept through the country, then the world, like a hurricane. The most prestigious of doctors were forced to their knees, unable to explain the onslaught of deaths among women between the ages of 22 and 41. Women who were verifiably healthy, with minimal pre-existing conditions, with nothing to explain the climbing death toll. Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Friends, Lovers. Gone.

Many scoffed, explaining it away by the lack of medical research involving women's health. Typical. If young men were dying at the same rates as young women, they would’ve gotten on it much sooner. Perhaps, then, I wouldn't be panicking the way I am now. 

It's been 2 days. 2 days since my monthly was due. Efforts to distract myself have resulted in counting the mosaic tiles on our kitchen backsplash and pacing the length of our living room while willing myself to bleed. Pushing and shoving myself down until it hurts, only to find a disappointingly clean pair of cloth beneath me. 127 blue ceramic tiles glint in the mid morning sunlight flooding in through the open blinds. The low rumble of the city outside is drowned out by the chaos in my head.

“I’m off.” Erik gives me a kiss as he hurdles for the door, a lingering concern in his eyes. “What time are we meeting at Barnaby’s again?” 

But I’m already halfway to the living room, my thoughts buried in the disheveled state of our throw pillows. How I’ve never noticed their mismatched state is beyond me. 

“Babe?” Erik calls out to me, one foot still in our foyer and the other braced in the hallway. I straighten a pillow, giving it a chop in the middle like I saw one of those flashy interior decorators do on the Home channel once. 

“What?” I answer, my attention glued to the obnoxious sofa and its multiple colorblock pillows and the velour throw blanket that suddenly seems offensive to the eye. A crime, really.

Erik taps at the door, peering behind him to the looming staircase stretching to the ground floor. “What time is the surprise party?” 

Blinking, I sift through the filing cabinet of my mind, tacked full to the brim with pressing information. “Mmm. 5:30” 

Erik hovers in the doorway as I pick up the throw draped over the armrest, fold it in half, and study it as it dangles off the side like a wet rag. He watches me shake my head, and fold it once more, backing away for a clearer view. Erik knows better than to press me for questions when I’m in a state like this. The last thing I want is to drag him into my madness. Not right now. Not just yet. Instead, he confirms he’ll see me later and closes the door behind him, leaving me to my slippery slope of worry. 

Erik 

The streets are crowded with the morning hustle and bustle. A swollen sidewalk full of people on the way to their office jobs or their children's drop off points, each one with the weight of the day's to-do’s resting on their shoulders. Men in suits bound down the packed sidewalk, nearly knocking into Erik as he rounds the corner. He dodges them with ease, the metro station only a few short blocks away. He catches a glimpse of himself in a store window. A mound of course black hair and weary eyes stare back. 

He could tell Angel was keeping something from him. Something that had her steaming with anxious mania. Over the last couple days, she scrubbed the floors and reorganized the kitchen cabinets. She’d vacuumed and mopped and swept. A sure sign of some inner angst she's not ready to share.

She’d been like this before. He knew her patterns. She’d polished all their wine glasses three times after applying to grad school, only calming down once the acceptance letter arrived. This felt different. There was a weight to her anxiety, an air of dread emanating from her. An overwhelming unease settled over him, one he couldn’t shake, but had to ignore until Angel let him in. He’d learned she always eventually did. On her own time, in her own way.

His thoughts carried him from the train to the lab where he clocked in. VitalLife is one of the many research labs erected with the aim of finding the cause and cure to the epidemic that swept through womankind 26 years ago, changing humanity as we knew it. 

It’s unknown where it started or how to stop it. In 2 and a half decades, experts have discovered a gene mutation that seemingly lies dormant in biological females at birth. Upon conception, the body seems to initiate a ticking time bomb of sorts. A pregnant woman's days become numbered, only enough of them are left to grow the fetus, where only hours after birth, her organs begin to systematically shut down. The body attacking itself from the inside out. She can only hold her baby for a small amount of time before she loses motor skills and fades away. A cruel twist of fate. The world gradually morphed into a place without mothers, only fathers.

“Morning, Dianna,” Erik waves as he opens his locker, revealing a crisp lab coat. Perhaps, work will take his mind off the brick sitting in his chest.

His hands are steady as he takes a stack of files labeled under his name, a slew of DNA collection cases for the day. Erik settles into his station, readying himself for the next 8 hours. He plucks the first file from the stack, rolling a tube from the envelope. The birthdate on the vial sparking a memory of balloons, a banner, and Angel writhing above him. June 14th. His birthday.

Angel

Erik and I have always been safe, using condoms and the pull-out method with neurotic precision for years. It's the kind of mindfulness that takes the excitement and spontaneity out of sex. However, we manage. We reserve traditional means for special occasions like Christmas and birthdays, supplementing by experimenting with each other, or ourselves in between. In a world in which pregnancy is a death sentence and birth control has become heavily regulated, we have to get creative in regards to pleasure. The danger of an accident always looming over us like a heavy cloud waiting to burst. 

After the first wave, women went to their doctors in droves demanding hysterectomies. A mass exodus to sterilization. However, when the government stepped in, they put a stop to hysterectomies and regulated birth control to the point it no longer became accessible to the average person. Doctors hands were tied when it came to pregnancy prevention, instead they shifted to dolling out death sentences when a woman fell pregnant.

Luckily, I managed to secure an appointment with a physician today. So, I can prepare if worse comes to worse. I throw on a pair of sweats and a cardigan from the hamper, heading for the subway station. The journey is a blur until I find myself at the reception desk, giving her my name and information, Angel Darren, born October 12th, 1995. The look on the receptionist's face tells me she understands why I’m here. 

The waiting room is cold and barren. Just a lone television screen playing the Home channel to keep me company. All too soon, a nurse in ladybug scrubs emerges from behind the door. The nurse guides me to the back, taking my weight and jotting down some vitals. 

“The bathroom is the 2nd door on the left, leave this on the counter as you exit” she forces a plastic cup into my hands and motions me down the hall. A flat empty gray ahead of me. 

My heart beats in my ears as I shut the bathroom door behind me, a drumming developing in my temples. I whisper prayers to whatever being lay beyond, one I am sure to meet sooner than I’d like to. Unscrewing the lid, setting it on the sink, I give myself a lasting look. My dark red hair and green eyes more vibrant than my deflated spirit. The freckles dotted on my nose, a constellation of patches surround a button nose. I wonder if he or she will have my freckles, my fiery red hair or if they’ll have coiled hair like Erik. 

I make my way to the toilet, squatting over the lid to relieve myself with the cup hovering underneath me. Once full, I twist on the lid back on the cup, pulling my pants over my knees. A flash of crimson catches my gaze. In my pants, the most beautiful shade of red cradled in a sheet of cotton. I bite my lip to keep myself from screaming as I shove a finger inside, pulling out a bloodied pointer finger. An outburst of egregious laughter wells up in my throat. The last 48 hours melted away in an instant. Anxiety replaced with relief. A welcome stream of red, better late than never. Instead of my life flashing before my eyes I see a slideshow of my future - annual beach trips to Pass-a-Grille, Erik and I chasing our golden retriever through piles of fallen leaves, rocking chairs on a wrap-around porch overlooking a mint field. 

“I don’t need this anymore” I say, handing the nurse an empty cup, as I skip down the flat gray hallway, back home to tell Erik about the day I had.