War Against the Underground Bees Part III

This is Part III of an entertaining, true-story, 3-part series about two young boys and their war against the underground bees. (And, yes, one of the boys was me.) If you're breaking into the middle of the story, feel free to read Part I and Part II below. _________________________________________

The next morning, as the sun peeked its bright pink head over the trees on the horizon, I began my trek back to the rivals' fort. Corey quickly came to meet me. “I have an awesome idea!” he loudly whispered with the barely-contained excitement of a calculating megalomaniac about to conquer the world. My friend then moved his sinister eyes and starred at the water hose. It didn’t take long for me to get the hint.

“Of course, that is it! This is the way to gain victory against the bees. Just flood them out.” I could hardly contain myself. Could it really be that easy? Was the war really a hair’s breadth from being over, and in our favor?

I snatched the end of the hose and lodged it into the entrance of the bee’s underground lair. Then, wearing his famous Cheshire cat grin, Corey turned the water on full blast. Like water bursting through a damaged dam, a torrent of watery death spewed out of the nozzle and into the bee colony megalopolis.

Bees began to rapidly assemble around the entryway in total disarray. And we, being much more keen and farsighted than we had been in our previous attack, stood a safe distance from the deluge. The bees were absolutely helpless. They could do nothing in response to our upping the ante. If we couldn’t defeat our foes in combat, we would resort to a much crueler method of warfare—genocidal terrorism. We would eradicate every vestige of civilization that they had—flood their city, exterminate much of their population, assassinate their beloved queen. It would soon be over for the insects’ empire in my friend’s backyard.

We ran inside Corey’s house for a premature victory celebration. The latest battle had been well devised and executed with Napoleon-like genius. I can’t remember exactly how we reveled in our supremacy, but we reveled like young boys would, giddy as ever, full of young pride (and probably Oreo's in hand). We had vanquished a vast colony of bees with the use of one weapon—our nuclear bomb—the water hose. We had no remorse, no second thoughts, no pity. The only thing on our mind was “victory at all costs.” I headed home that afternoon with a smug winner’s smile on my face.

I walked to Corey’s house the next morning to follow up on the news of our victory. I was shocked to find out that he had been grounded because he had forgotten to turn off the water which was used to flood the bees. His sister, who had answered the door, told me about how her dad had walked off of the back porch that morning and stepped onto soggy, wet soil. He was totally speechless when he found out that the water hose had been running throughout the night. Speechless, that is, until he found Corey. Overkill had been achieved on a couple of accounts.

I remember surveying the destruction that we had caused. What once had been a beautiful, active backyard full of various living organisms busily accomplishing their duties and giving back to their natural habitat and ecosystem had now become a drab, dead swampland—wasted and empty. It was no longer bustling with abundance and vibrance. It had actually become quite boring, and for a young boy, boredom is a terrible scourge to be avoided at all costs.

Ironically, it was us heartless and warmongering boys who had created this “new and improved” boring landscape without the “evil” bees. What had they done, after all? Perhaps it was the fact that they were wholeheartedly toiling to make our world a better place to live in—pollinating flowers and creating honey—that led us to our dastardly deed: erasing their existence from the face of the earth. Or maybe it was their harmonious and orderly system that made us jealous of their abundance. Could we have been such ruthless and sadistic humans to simply do it for the pleasure? How dare us!

I began to feel utterly horrible. It felt as if a dark and sinister cloud of guilt was hovering over my head, soon to release a powerful thunderstorm of self-remorse. I continued to review the damage the deluge had created. “Why?” I asked myself. As I laid sight on the remains of the once bustling-with-activity metropolis of the bees, I began to taste the bitterness of this victory. I knew the memory of this day of infamy would remain forever in my mind.

For many more years Corey and I would chum around in his backyard. I always hoped that the bees would return to their now desolate abode. They never did. It seems they had learned their lesson: Never construct a city within the vicinity of young boys. It seems we had also learned our lesson: Never take lightly the horrible power and destructive force of water, and never use it without a noble and righteous cause, such as watering the plants that bees pollinate.