Hum

 

Hum

There was a low hum coming from somewhere in the pantry which was extremely odd since all that was in there was dry goods. For the sake of my own sanity I took everything off of the shelves. I only encountered a couple of meal moths, but nothing that would cause a hum. I put my ear to the wall, there it was. I put my ear to the floor and it seemed to be louder. Could it be coming from the basement?

I hated the basement. The floor was bare earth and there always seemed to be a drip of water from somewhere that you could never pinpoint. It was musty and drafty, sometimes you could see the cobwebs fluttering in the breeze. When the wind kicked up outside there would be spooky moaning noises down there. I only went down there on the rare occasion when the pilot light went out and there was no fire under the boiler.

This time was different, I was trying to figure out what the mysterious hum was and where it was coming from. I got to the bottom step and reached out into the darkness and found the pull chain for the light. Once illuminated the basement wasn’t so creepy. Just as I was thinking this something whizzed by my ear, and then another. I perked up my ears and I could hear the hum, or was it more of a buzz. Either way it was coming from the corner of the house where the pantry was.

There was one more light with a pull chain and then the entire basement was lit up. It was then I saw it. It was an oozing, mass of life in the corner with constant motion and something dripping from it. As I stood transfixed something whizzed by my ear again, and then I realized what I was looking at. It was not some alien creature. It was a swarm of bees on a hive and what was dripping was honey.

I went back up stairs and called my neighbor who I knew kept bees. He said he’d come right over and get them because he had a couple of empty boxes that needed new hives.

It was a matter of a few hours work for him, I was no help at all. I offered to pay him for his time but he told me that getting a new hive was well worth the time he had invested. He also told me he’d left a little something on my kitchen table.

When I went back in after seeing him off, I found two large jars of honey with a note that read, “This is as local as you can get, Enjoy.”

It’s pretty quiet around here now.

It was then I heard a low hum coming from the kitchen. I rushed in there, in all the peace and quiet I’d forgotten how loud the compressor on the refrigerator was.