West Virginia Hills
“Did you know that they live in communities?” my brother asked.
“Yes I did,” I said.
“No, man seriously, like real communities,” he said.
As I sat there half listening to my little brother, I looked out the window of my grandparents house. They drank coffee like it was water. Everything smelled like caffeine in that place. I wondered if it was possible to grow a tolerance to caffeine. They seemed to have.
“It says here they take care of their young, store food, and protect their Queen,” he said.
“Sounds like old England or something,” I said.
“Who says they don’t?” he asked. “Apparently, they go to work every day and most of them follow the same path to and from work.”
“Yeah, I think they have like a class system or something,” I said, “there are like workers, and some stay home and take care of it, and the queen has guards and shit.”
“I don’t know about all that,” he said, flipping through some pages, “it hasn’t said anything about that.”
Out the window I could see the countryside of West Virginia. The hills rolled on for days and the clouds stumbled over them. The hills were covered by young trees that shivered at the sight of the gray wind.
“So, these guys, when they go out to work,” he stumbled along. He never was a strong reader. “They use the resources they need, then take what’s left around to other places for the greater good of the society.”
“Yeah man, that’s the fundamental action of an economy, right?” I asked.
“Um, yeah that sounds about right,” he answered.
I remember my dad telling me about all the mining that was done out here. He said they would strip mine the mountains for the wood and coal, and then leave it alone for about ten years to grow back before coming back. He called it ‘raping’ the land. That means it had a choice.
“Dude, right here it talks about how they pick their Queen, and it seems pretty random. There’s no good reason for it. Like, she was just lucky to be born into it.” He said.
“That sounds pretty ridiculous,” I said. “So she’s no different from anyone else other than she was ‘chosen’ to be Queen. It like they don’t choose who they want to follow.”
“Yeah, but no one argues,” he said. “They just do their jobs.”
“Wow, I don’t think I could handle that business,” I said.
The clouds are starting to move by a bit, the sun’s gentle arms embrace the ravaged land. Just over the tree line a flock of geese flew in formation across the sky. The goose in front pulled the others along as each goose behind him followed in his draft. As they changed course away from me, I saw the leader wobble and fall from his course. Shot down by a hunter. As the hundred pellets tore into it and it fell from the sky, the flock scrambled. The next goose in line assumed his vacant spot and they flew on.
“Hey man,” my brother said, “what are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“It says here that they don’t live all that long and all they do is work until their job is done. Then they die,” he said.
“Well, I guess you can’t expect there to be much meaning in their lives,” I said.
The hills sank back into gray as the sun hid back behind the clouds. I saw grandma’s flower garden. On one of the daisies sat a bee.