[Opening] A gentle morning blending into the day. Clouds floating by. A gentle breeze moving through the trees. I sit very still beside a slow, warm fire. Nothing much happening. Nothing needs to. [Instrumental] [Movement] Something moves at the edge of my vision. A chipmunk. It scurries quickly from one hiding place to the next. Stops. Moves again. Eventually it emerges onto the railing and quickly climbs into a tomato grow bag. It disappears. [Pause] Then… two little eyes just above the edge of the bag. Surveying its world. Still. Watching. Safe enough. [Instrumental] [Conversation] Somewhere beyond the fence children come outside. Two little dogs begin their morning rounds. And from the trees crows call back and forth. Then… the children answer. [Pause] The crows call. The children call back. And for a little while there is a conversation moving across the yards. Nobody translates. Nobody needs to. [Instrumental] [Arrival] And then… a bee drops out of the sky and lands on me. Not dramatically. Not with a message. She just… lands. [Pause] She walks across my leg. Stops. Grooms her wings. Her face. Her antennae. Then becomes still. [Drift] Maybe she’s tired. Maybe she’s flown farther than I know. Maybe she simply found a warm place where nothing was asking anything of her. So… I let her stay. [Instrumental] [Observation] I wonder what I am to a bee. Does she know she landed on something alive? Does she know there’s someone beneath her feet? Or am I only terrain? Warm ground. A strange landscape. A place to stop. A place to rest. Somewhere to land. [Pause] [Journey] Eventually I think perhaps she needs water. So I offer her a bottle cap for the journey. She steps aboard. For a moment. Then climbs onto my thumb. And stays. [Pause] So we stay there together. Two living things beside the water. Neither one knowing quite what the other is thinking. [Instrumental] And then… without announcement… she flies. [Release] Back toward the flowers. Back toward the trees. Back into a world I can observe but never completely enter. [Instrumental] [Transmission] Maybe she knew I was alive. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe, for a little while, I was simply a safe piece of the world. [Pause] And maybe that’s enough. Because sometimes another life doesn’t need us to understand it. Doesn’t need us to save it. Doesn’t need a message. Sometimes… it just needs somewhere to land. [Instrumental] The morning continues. And so do we. [Outro] Blending into the day…. [Instrumental Outro] [Fade Out] [End]
