The beekeeper was big as a house. Bigger. His head was a house and his body the street it lived on. An enormous giant. He was a world unto himself. Perhaps. 

    Or perhaps not. 

    Perhaps the people were tiny, and the beekeeper of the same stature as any normal man. Red-blooded. American. Puritanical on workdays and a sinner on Saturday. 

    The beekeeper was keeper without bees.

    The workers sat in their tiny office cubicles—though “cube” implies their spaces were square when, in fact, they were hexagons. The workers sat in their tiny hexagonicles and produced. They clicked away at tiny keyboards and answered calls on tiny phones, and when they were morose from overwork, they looked up at tiny posters of kittens dangling from branches, proudly encouraging, Hang in there!

    “Hello!”

    “Good morning.”

    “Hello.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “Please and thank you.”

    “Thank you and please.”

    “Have a wonderful day.”

    “May the beekeeper be with you.”

    “And also with you!”

    All honey. All the time. All the sticky, polite sweetness they could muster. Day in, day out. Their little fingers bled honey. They cried fat, golden tears of it. They exhaled its viscous amber nectar. No matter what. They swallowed bullshit and excreted refined golden tar. All honey, all the time.

    The beekeeper was fickle. He gave the people a queen, then removed her and told them to figure out democracy. And when the people voted, he tallied up votes, lauded their efforts, then laughed in jest and reinstated the Queen. But even the Queen was expected to make honey. Even she didn’t get to swallow the royal jelly.

    “Honey, honey,” he demanded, “but none the drop for you.” He took their honey and in exchange he gave them smoke, his ill-begotten wares for his black, black currency. He kept them in their little cells and claimed all their honey, everyday telling them, “This honey you give to me. This honey is mine. And if you work diligently, if you’re good little workers, one day you’ll fly free, floating on pollen in the breeze, and you shall have the most heavenly delight. You shall have your own sweetness. You while the days away and, in turn, you’ll be rewarded. With honey.”

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