The Nearly Forgotten Sound of Buzzing

"Lindy, that was the chime. We have to get back."

Lindy stretched and took one last sip of her energy drink, puckering her face at its bitterness and touching the small golden vial that hung on a chain around her neck.

"You 're kidding, aren't you?" she mumbled, mostly to herself. Looking up, she noticed Ben had his arm outstretched, offering to help pull her to her feet. She gladly accepted.

"You okay for the afternoon?" he asked.

Lindy looked over the endless acres of emerging bean plants on the giant Midwestern farm. "I guess, but I can't believe how tired I am!"

"I can," Ben said, turning to lead the way from the café tent back to the field. "But we only have two more weeks before break."

A whole week, Lindy thought, seven glorious days of rest before it started all over again. "Well, at least we're getting near the end of the green beans," she offered. "My back feels like it's been pulled loose and my hands itch all over. Studying for finals would be better than this. Way better! I sure do miss the bees."

"Understatement," Ben said as he rolled his eyes.

In fact, everyone missed the bees. Only a few years had passed since the die-off, but so much had changed. Before the devastating event, the natural population of honeybees was supplemented by an additional million hives maintained by beekeepers. The keepers shipped their hives from one field to another to pollinate crops all over the country. It was hard to believe it had been only three years since the bees had disappeared.

But it was easy to remember the panic that followed. At first, only the farmers understood the seriousness of the problem, but when store shelves began to empty, everyone understood. We had become a species whose survival depends on eating the seeds of wheat, rice, corn, and millet. It was shocking to realize how many crops depended on the pollination of honeybees.

Of course there were other insects to naturally pollinate the fields; there just weren't enough of them. The government reacted quickly, ordering school students between the ages of 14 and 17 to spend their spring semesters manually pollinating the fields of beans, melons, wheat, and corn that stretched through farm country from coast to coast. From April through June, the students' daily routine consisted of brushing pollen grains off of flowers' anthers into a pail and then swabbing it onto other flowers' stigmas.

Lindy couldn't help remembering when in spring the Earth came to life effortlessly. Flowers bloomed in bold hues everywhere. She put that thought from her mind, rubbed her finger over the golden vial that hung from her neck, and pulled her painter's mask over her face. She joined Ben and the others, who each carried a lunch-bucket-size pail in one hand and a three-pronged swab in the other. Methodically, Ben stooped over a bean plant, dipped his swab into his bucket, and lightly touched the spongy tips to the plant's flowers. Stoop and swab…stoop and swab…stoop and swab — 8 hours a day all week, working shifts that covered all the daylight hours, every day of the week. The work was tedious, hot, and boring, but without the students working as pollinators…well, no one wanted to think too much about that. "Ben," Lindy asked as she stepped to the next bean plant, "is it really true that scientists are breeding butterflies to do this? I mean, are they serious?"

"That's what I hear," Ben replied, sounding unconvinced. I don't see that as happening any time soon, though. Certainly any time to get us off this assignment before we're out of high school. They're trying all kinds of things." Ben thought for a moment and added, in a whisper, "But I have the most hope for the Gen-enging of the honeybees.

"Shhh!" Lindy looked to see if anyone had heard Ben's comment.

It was, in fact, the Gen-engers — or genetic engineers — who had gotten the world into this mess in the first place. And even mentioning them was cause enough for a fight. After defeating malaria worldwide by introducing a generic alteration that was fatal to female mosquitoes, genetic engineers were the heroes of the developing world. The genetic variation had been introduced through a manufactured virus. The celebration was short-lived, however, when the mutation "jumped species." Whether the virus migrated to honeybees though pollen or air or water was unclear — .and it didn't matter anyway The results were the same.

In the first year, the honeybee population was infected. In the second year, it was nearly gone.

The following year revealed the massive crop failures. A year after that, the president introduced the temporary "School Service Assignment," until a permanent solution could be found. It all seemed to happen so quickly. Now, the genetic engineers were working frantically (and in secret) to produce a honeybee that would be immune to the genetic alteration.

"Lindy, I know I shouldn't think this way, but how many people used to die of malaria-and how many more now starve to death?" His voice was low as he bent to the rhythm of their work.

"Don't even go there, Ben. That kind of thinking will make you crazy. You can't count lives like they're…" Lindy stopped at the sound of the siren and stood up to look around. Others stood and also looked all around until they saw the signs of a scuffle at the western end of the fields.

"Protest," Ben whispered, his voice a warning growl. "Stay down. They might be coming this way."

During the fall semester, student protestors had become more vocal… and more rowdy. Their position was to eliminate the School Service Assignment and let the world population get by any way it could. As much as Ben and Lindy hated their backbreaking work, they couldn't accept the view of the protestors. Would the balance of food and population reestablish itself? Sure, but not until millions — who knew how many — starved or died in conflicts worldwide over the diminished food supply. The noise was growing louder, and Ben noticed that the fighting was headed directly toward them. "Lindy! Up, quick! Run for the café, and grab your bucket!"

They tore down parallel rows of beans, careful through months of habit not to trample the plants. Lindy's hand closed about the vial. When they reached the café tent, she followed Ben's lead, tucking her bucket into a wooden box in the corner, and pulling the lid of the box closed. Running from the back of the tent, the two followed a path onto a roadway and assumed a casual walk away from the fields. They could hear yelling and when they dared to look back, they could see rocks sailing through the air like low-flying birds. There was something else in the air, too… the odor of tear gas. Lindy prayed that the protestors would back off before the authorities cracked down even harder on all of the student workers.

"Please walk me home, Ben," she begged as they began to run as fast as they could from the area.

"Sure, Lindy. You know I will."

There was no thought of work any more for the afternoon, and although they should have been happy, Ben and Lindy were silent. When they reached Lindy's house, over two miles from the fields, they were tired and really hungry. Lindy cut a thin piece of her mom's homemade bread for each of them. The loaf needed to last the week before her family would get a new ration of flour and her mom could bake more. Ben spread some butter very thinly on his portion, and the two settled into a sofa to relax and enjoy their snack. It was then that Lindy carefully removed the golden vial from her neck.

"I didn't know that you were a collector?" Ben asked, pointing to the vial.

"Birthday present," Lindy replied. "I might even share?" She opened the top, and poured a single drop of the golden liquid, first on Ben's bread, and then on her own. They both closed their eyes to enjoy the warm, sweet taste of golden honey. Lindy could almost hear the nearly forgotten buzzing of bees.

By Steven R. Wills