By Lisa Godfrees
Recycle in five…
Tension claws at my shoulders. No matter how often I’ve done this—four times a day, five days a week, for sixteen years, but who’s counting?—I can’t get used to it. I wouldn’t want to.
Four…
Bodies pound on metal. Clang. Clang. Then harder. Clang! Clang! Then faster. Clangclangclang.
Three…
Feeble cries for mercy rattle through my skull. Help us, please!
Two…
The hiss of gas. As it crescendos, the buzz subsides.
One…
And their convulsions begin.
Then…
Silence. I can almost breathe. Until…
Zzzzzzzt.
The hair on my body, what’s left of it, threatens to jump off my skin as the gas ignites. I feel the warmth on my back. Without realizing it, I’ve turned away from the Recycling Room like I used to in the early days. Back when I had to worry about the intense blue light that filtered through the cracks in the outer containment doors. Back when I could still see.
Recycling complete.
I wait for the chime signaling the Recycling Room is cool enough to enter. My fingers find the correct button—top right, second row, third in—and release the doors so the reclaimers can enter.
The shoe covers they’re required to wear swish across the floor as they go to collect the “recycled material.” As if euphemisms make what we do more palatable.
From the opposite direction, the staccato taps of uncovered shoes approach.
“Recycler,” a deep voice says with the crisp inflection of a man used to giving orders. “Was that the last run of the day?”
“The last run of the morning.” I turn my head in the direction of the voice. “There’ll be two more this afternoon.”
“I see.” A heavy sigh. “I wonder if you’d join us for lunch?”
Like I have a choice.
I follow the tap-tapping footsteps—two people by the way the sound rebounds off the walls, and one of them a woman in heels—past the break room and into the elevator. We ascend to the top floor.
Ding.
I trail my hand along the textured wall—left turn, left turn, second doorway—until we enter what must be a conference room. The aroma of leather and furniture polish greets us—the smell of money and power.
“Have a seat, Jacob.”
I grope until my fingers find supple leather then pull the chair from the table and slide into its coffin-like grip.
High heels tap away and return, bringing the scent of roasted meat, potatoes, and perfume. My stomach clenches.
Clinking of silverware on plates—real, not disposable. Chewing, swallowing, sips of beverage, a glass returned to the table. Then silence.
“Aren’t you hungry?” The woman’s voice is velvet—alto enough to have age, but still strong in timbre.
I imagine the hunk of turgid flesh on my plate. The faint red of weeping juice from what once lived and breathed. “Not really.”
They shift in their seats, place silverware on plates. The chair to my left groans as the man leans back. Another heavy sigh. “I understand you have some concerns about what we do here.”
A statement, not a question. Why bring it up now, years later? “It doesn’t keep me from doing my job.”
“No.” The word is long, drawn out. “But we’ve had complaints from the people you work with, especially the new hires you’ve trained.”
I almost smile. Clearly, I’ve hit a nerve. The young still have a conscience after all, despite the company’s propaganda that recycling is necessary and humane.
“We’d like to hear your concerns directly.” A waft of perfume as she shifts in her chair. “To make sure we understand.”
I consider how to start. How to convey to these decision makers the wrongness of their actions. A chance I’ve been waiting for since the pleas for help began buzzing in my mind.
“There was a man in the twentieth century named Adolf Hitler,” I begin. “He rounded up the old, the infirm, people with different beliefs and put them in recycling chambers—”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” The man’s voice is sharp. “That’s hardly what we do here.”
“You’re right.” Heat burns in my chest, intense as the incinerator. “This company is so much worse than Nazi Germany because you breed them first. You make them work for you until they are too old to be of use, and then you recycle them.”
The woman makes a sound, almost a squawk. “You can’t be serious. How could you work here if you feel this way?”
“As penance.”
“Penance for wha—?”
“Jacob,” the woman interrupts her colleague, “you realize we’re talking about bees, not people, right? Anthophila Incorporated was created to save the species, not eradicate it. Our company breeds bees to protect them. We allow them to pollinate flowers and crops so that both our species can survive.”
“That’s what you want everyone to believe, but really you use them for their honey, which you sell for a profit. And then you incinerate them and recycle them for feed!”
“Bees are an excellent source of protein. Third world—”
“You think you’re the master race. Well, missy, I grew up on a farm. I know the score. The slaughtering of innocent animals. The widespread use of pesticides by the negligent, threatening hundreds of species with extinction.”
“Jacob,” the man says, “I’m very sorry, but we can’t allow you to work here anymore.”
“You can’t fire me!” I stand, and my chair crashes into the wall behind me. “Your evil blue beam blinded me.”
“The Recycling Room light isn’t capable of—”
“Give me a colony,” I blurt.
Stunned silence.
“Give me a colony to tend, and I won’t sue you.”
And that’s how I became Jacob the Beekeeper.
I approach the beehives I’ve erected in a clearing near the tree line at my old farmstead.
Bee voices buzz in my mind as my new charges settle on my sleeves and face. Thank you, Jacob. You saved uszzzz.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I love how the tension winds up tighter… and then lets out all at once, like air sputtering out of a ballon.
Thanks, Zachary. The story didn’t end up where I thought it was going to go.
Loved the ending twist. I kept thinking it was something like soylent green, but then a life form that we would never think of as sentient. Brilliant!
Thanks, Susan!
Oh my goodness you had me at the beginning there 0.o X’D
My poor protagonist was a little touched in the head.