The Day the Beekeeper Died: Sulaymaniyah

His daughter pulls on her father’s frayed dishdasha to go check the bees. Today she doesn’t carry the smoke canister with her to the field. She opens a tray while talking down their high whine, breaks off honeycomb and rubs it over her face and hair, over white cloth, down to her feet. Each of her hands holds the crumbling comb like a sponge while she waits for them. When the first one comes she feels wings against her toes, a tongue unscrolling. She wills herself not to laugh as the next alights on her neck, tickling her hairs as it walks. Then they descend to shoulders, forearms, chest, thighs, eyes she shuts—she feels the thousand tongues on the cloth. Feather-like wings churn in her ears, rustle and hum with agitated talk. Never been so loved. Her father’s alive, she’s a torch of burning bees, tears course across cheeks. When her mother sees the apparition of bees walking towards their door she falls on her knees. It is the end of the world. But when the angel speaks with her daughter’s voice she’s not amazed. Mama, how do I end this? Her mother brushes bees away from her eyes, pulls them from her hair and undresses her child, hanging the winged dishdasha on the clothes line. Carries her naked girl into the house to bathe. The bee-like angels take all day to strip honey from the robe, return it to their tiered home.