Beekeeping Days

This is the 11th installment in a series inspired by characters from Greek mythology. It follows directly from the 10th installment called, The Deep.

The crunch of snow had become an all-too-familiar sensation and sound for Theron in the past few months. He was now used to the painful bite of frost on his toes and knew that he needed to keep moving and wriggling them periodically within his goat-skin boots — boots he himself had stitched clumsily together only weeks after the weather and temperature had turned grey and frigid.

It had been a mercy killing for the goat when he decided to skin it to make the boots. It was mercy, but it was also necessity — with an ever-increasing need to venture further out for food, Theron had to ensure he could return home at all costs. The poor animal was almost entirely skin and bones when he butchered it, anyway— barely any meat left for him and his then pregnant wife, Delione, to eat. As he trudged through the unforgiving snow, he thought of his wife, back in their simple earthen residence, huddling by a fire with only bone marrow soup for sustenance, her breasts barely able to squeeze a pathetic trickle of milk for their malnourished daughter, Melina. The babe was now only two months old, miraculously surviving against all odds.

“Melina.” He said the name aloud and watched the condensation cloud puff up from his lips.

Her name meant “honey.” Beekeeping was an activity that caused him to harken back to warmer days, days before the endless Winter, days before Demeter’s Depression. “Melina” was such a hopeful name, and the feeling that it espoused in both his wife and himself helped to spark the faint warmth of a brighter world from the past.

Now the beekeeping days seemed like eons ago — a time before the goddess, Demeter, had forsaken the mortal world. It was said that her depression had thrown the seasons off balance. Mortals did not know what they could have done to deserve such punishment. The gods rarely spoke directly with them, and when they did, it might be the last conversation for whomever happened to be taking part in the conversation. But rather than a direct punishment to humankind, the plunge into endless Winter was more likely related to a dispute amongst the gods themselves, and mortals were simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, an afterthought, a passive casualty— like a rabbit snared in one of Theron’s traps.

He flexed his hands and twitched his dry, chapped lips. The sting of frostbite on his face quickly brought him back to the present moment and the matter at hand.

The hunt.

His face was pockmarked and red, swollen from many days of being out in the elements, foraging for food and game to hunt. In the satchel on his back all he had managed so far were three pathetic field mice, barely a mouthful. He put two dried apricots into his mouth to chew on. Instantly, the taste of the apricots on his tongue brought him right back to a Summer reverie, Delione washing linens in the river as he lay in the verdant grass. He had watched her supple form in the river and laughed as she slipped clumsily on a rock. Comfortable and carefree, half naked with Helios’ warmth overhead to soothe the two of them — had they taken for granted how good life was and how…..

SNAP!!!

The Summer day disappeared and he stopped, dead in his tracks.

A broken twig nearby!

He crouched low in the snow near a thickle-berry bush, taking care not to snag his skin on its thorns.

He held his breath, letting seconds of silence tick by.

Carefully raising his head, he looked up at the barren trees, their dry leaves rustling, making him reminisce about the sounds of papyrus rubbing together, a distant memory of when he was a boy. His father had taken him to the area of town where the scholars used to congregate and debate. He was amazed at the shops he passed, each one with rows of hanging papyrus fluttering in the gentle breeze. The writing was like artwork without meaning to him. He had never learned to read.

Theron let out his breath and crouched even lower, raising his head just above the cluster of red berries on the thickle-berry bush. The world was full of white and grey — an overcast sky that made him forget blue had ever existed. He squinted again, and held his breath once more.

Two rabbits in the the distance, both white as snow, some forty meters away. Theron’s eyesight was keen, and he could see the faint pink tint in their ears, blood circulating, beady black dots of their eyes.

Ever so slowly, Theron reached to the quiver on his back, his calloused hand finding an arrow. His other hand grasped for his bow. He nocked the arrow on the string and led out his breath, silently. Looking down at his goatskin boots he inhaled again, this time deeply, calmly, and with the target in mind.

He raised his head slowly, his arrow and bow elevating towards his target.

His name meant “hunter.”

He let out his breath and let the arrow loose.