Used to Bees

by Adamson Wood

 

[Editor’s Note: This piece is part of the “Topical” series, with each piece solely submitted to and chosen by the Final Reader Pietra Dunmore.]

 

Sam never planned to die in Henderson. In fact, he never planned to live in Henderson either. But given that choosing where one was born still wasn’t an option, and that old habits died hard—or never—leaving Henderson felt like saying no to a cold beer that’s already tickled the stomach.

As he drove towards the remnants of town, passing the city limits sign for the umpteenth time, he couldn’t help but worry if Henderson was the one who’d decided to leave him. One zero of the ten thousand was already exed out with red paint, the zero still visible, a shadow of better days. The town seemed as deserted as his sperm count, and he doubted that even a thousand people still called Henderson home.

Strolling down Henderson’s wide lanes, originally built for an ever distant, perhaps overly optimistic tomorrow, Sam remembered faces that were no longer there. The apple tree on Shady Lane and Shepherd brought back memories of the golden curls and sunny smile of his first crush; Hank’s Creamery the wicked frown and sharp spank of his mother when he had brought home rocky road instead of a pound of ground beef. Yet yesteryear’s ghosts weren’t enough to bring back life to Henderson.

The town was far past its prime, evident in silence as disconcerting as a school fire alarm. There were no screeching brakes nor growling engines; no crosswalk counts nor shuffling shoes. Sam no longer heard the leaf blowers bordering nature nor the jackhammers rewriting the past. Instead, there were water stains and an encroaching sea, lapping at the town’s footsteps like a scolded dog.

As his old jeep crawled along the city streets, mumbling like his creaking bones, Sam shed a tear, adding one more to the pool filled by the families left homeless by the most recent storm, fresh enough that the air still smelled like mother earth.

He pulled his jeep up to the town library, its wide columns reminiscent of ancient Greece, history clinging to the present for dear life. Dropping down from his truck, the kind of vehicle one doesn’t plan to grow old in, he approached the entrance. Outside was Henderson’s final monument: a goodbye poster painted with the names of former residents, many of whom had been his colleagues and students.

Sometimes, Sam would go to the local school, now closed, and wander the hallways of the old building where he had taught English for thirty years. He’d teach a mock lesson—Shakespeare or Dickens to memories of budding students. Yet on the worst of days, not even Romeo and Juliet could lift his spirits. All he’d do was scream, hear the echo reach back to him like the hands of a lover.

Sam fumbled for the permanent marker in his pocket as he resisted the urge to add his name to the poster. He’d been coming here every day this week, yet not once had he uncapped the marker. To do so felt like an act of no return. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand why everyone had left or even that he wanted to stay. The city was dying, or dead, or destined to die. Two category five hurricanes in as many years might have been a coincidence, but three seemed like the twisted hand of God or fate. And starting over was hard.

Yet Henderson was all he knew, even if it was half gone. And writing his name still felt like signing himself away, drafting himself to some foreign future that would be little more than his grave. Sam threw the marker away before picking it up again, ashamed that he had just littered, even if littering fines in Henderson were a thing of the past.

As he left the library and walked to Marty’s Diner, the once bright lights now flickering like a worn light bulb, he thought about Marty. Marty was like him, a Hendersonian to the bones, but not even fifty years of memories had swayed Marty to stay. Memories wouldn’t pay the bills. He had closed up shop six months ago after his clientele started to dry up, taking the morning smell of bacon and eggs right along with him.

“It’s the way of the world,” Marty had told him, before leaving Sam with the store’s key for barely the price of a morning cup of coffee. “No reason to swim against the tide of things.” He found Marty’s word choice ironic, as rising tides were part of the problem.

Sam opened the diner’s door and took a seat at his customary table, taking out his breakfast plate swaddled in aluminum foil. The diner was at half capacity, each person with their own homemade meal. No one spoke. They didn’t have to. Their presence alone, at the same tables as always, was enough to give them a taste of the way things used to be.

 

Adamson Wood teaches at Lone Star College in Houston, TX and received his MFA from Lindenwood University. He recently finished his first novel. This is his first flash fiction publication.

 

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