Bumblebee

“I wanted to be like a bumble bee.”

That was Gracey, my newest client. She was discovered nearly half-dead in the snow. Found, by some teacher as he exited the school building. He believed her to be dead and would have left her outside for even longer to call the police, if he had not checked the pulse that beat weakly in her wrist first.

I turned on my tape recorder, “Could you repeat that for me?”

“I wanted to be like a bumble bee.”

After two weeks in the hospital, I found her in my waiting room in the same fetal position as was described in the police report. In the same fetal position she now holds herself.

“Why a bumble bee?” I was caught off-guard by the sudden speech. In the first five appointments, Gracey didn’t say anything. Not to me, her parents, brothers, and, I suspect, not even to herself.

“I wanted to stop, like a bumble bee in winter.”

“Stop what?” Those first appointments were harsh. She sat for an hour while I did some paperwork that needed finishing. Gracey would stare at the blank walls, ceiling, and carpet in silence. Those pale blue eyes just as blank.

“Everything. I wanted to stop thinking, stop moving. I wanted to turn into glass - no wings. I wanted to be wings, the wings of a bumble bee.”

She stopped, but I knew I had to keep her going. I needed more, if I wanted any chance of helping her. “Why wings?”

“They’re beautiful. Tiny wings frost-bitten, they sparkle. Icy cold, they crumble under the slightest touch. I wanted to break just like the ice-covered wings of a bumble bee.”

Gracey wants the purging of emotion? Maybe she wants to give up and succumb to the weight of the stress. “You were willing to refrigerate yourself for that?”

“No, that’s only a small part. I wanted my limbs to freeze. I wanted the immobile legs of a bumble bee. I wanted to never move again.”

Is Gracey telling me of her passiveness? An unwilling to fight fate? “So, what was the biggest reason you stayed out in the snow?”

I wanted to be like a bumble bee in winter. I wanted to die.”