By 
I killed a bee.
There’s no other way to say it. It happened. I’m a bee killer.
I feel guilty about this bee-icide.
My approach toward insects is this: I pay to live in my home. They do not, nor are they invited. No creature with more than four legs should be taking up residence in my place. If the bugs stay outside, keep outta my abode, we’re all good. Invade my lair and all bets are off.
I spent a summer in Panama when I was a kid. One night, while settling into bed, a cockroach accosted me, boldly crawling across my pastel pink wall, mere feet above my twin bed. A bug as thick as a pack of Bubble Yum. The roaches I knew in New York, where I lived at the time, were typically the size of my little girl pinky toe. Gross and pesky, but manageable. Squishable. This cockroach was a meathead bug; ‘roided out.
In a panicked blur, I grabbed a small shoe, and THWACK! Nobody invited you, roach, GOOD.BYE! When I shared the story with the family I was staying with, the matriarch, a kind-eyed woman with a no-nonsense manner, fixed me with a somber stare and said matter-of-factly:
“If you kill one, the rest of their family will come back for revenge. You should be careful.”
I couldn’t be sure if she spoke the truth or not, her eyes twinkled, but her eyes always twinkled. I slept uneasily that night, dreams of being chased by vindictive cockroach armies disturbing my slumber.
Though I’m an adult and I know vengeful cockroach militias don’t exist, if ever I kill a bug, a nagging thought tries to take root in my mind, an immortal superstition, “The rest of it’s kind is coming for you.”
Since the weather in San Francisco rarely rises to uncomfortable levels, many apartment units, like mine, don’t have window screens. A recent series of humid nights brought with it a wimpy breeze and ravenous mosquitoes chomping on me like steak, dining for free, multiple times a week. I’m over being battered by bugs.
So, this bee.
It flew into my home one afternoon, using my screenless window as it’s portal. When it zoomed into my living room, my favorite cat did absolutely nothing. His feeble, half-assed attempts to catch it evolved into a game of his design, a cat-and-bee chase, only the bee was unaware of its participation and I became very concerned about getting stung. I watched his catnanigans for a bit, keeping one eye on the bee, the other on my useless feline, flipping, flopping and tossing in the air like a caught fish as he half-heartedly attempted to capture the fast-moving bee.
“Aren’t you going to do something, cat?! You only have two jobs: be cute and kill pests. Ugh!”
The bee, catching on to the cat’s plan, flew away from him and into my personal zone. Oh shit! Unthinkingly, I grabbed a broom and showed my cat how it’s done. Bee Smash!
I felt temporarily victorious – until I realized what I’d done. I killed a bee. We need bees! Bees are endangered! Did I not just have a conversation with someone about how we should try to avoid killing bees? Even though I initially scoffed and side-eyed the idea of sparing the life of an insect – sometimes these NorCal-ers take their organic-treehugging-sustainable-“nature, man”-hippieness to extremes and it’s easy to get caught up in – I am nothing if not soft-hearted when it comes to living creatures.
However, I acted on instinct. The instinct not to end up with my soft-hearted ass in the hospital. A bee stung me once – the same year as the great Panamanian cockroach haunting – and the incident ended with piercing pain and a trip to the doctor’s office. No thank you.
Filled with self-reproach – because of me, that’s one less flower pollinated, who knows how much I’ve messed up the circle of life – I approached the fallen bee, hoping that it’d still be twitching. Alive.
The bee remained still.
Dammit!
I poked it gently with a pen, careful not to get too close lest it was playing possum and decided to sneak attack.
It didn’t move.
I gently picked it up in my paper-towel-covered hand, walked to my window and placed it carefully on the fire escape. Solemnly I said to the bee, still slightly hopeful it’d flutter awake, “I am really sorry. I will not kill another, but can you guys not fly into my apartment? Also, please do not send your bee crew after me in retaliation.”
I'm Keisha ("Kee-shuh", not to be confused with 
