TUNES // Brice Randall Bickford – The First Grain

There was a bee massacre in our driveway today.
I heard the buzzing first. There was an emotion to it, but it wasn’t angry. Confused maybe. And then I saw them: probably a thousand dead and dying bees, enough to make tracks through when I parked my car.

 
Right now all the still alive ones are crawling around pointlessly outside our backdoor. I think maybe they are attracted to the porch light. I have this very stupid urge to bring one inside in a shoebox and nurse it back to life. They’re bees though; it’s not like you can bottle feed them.
(Update: a Google search has confirmed this.)
I called our landlord, I guess planning on making him feel guilty for exterminating what basically amount to the planet’s lifeblood. He didn’t know anything about it though. He’s a nice, kind of weird guy who, every time I ask how he is, responds with, “BEAUTIFUL.” He told me to keep him updated on the bee thing.
Now I’m sitting by the back door listening to the soft, futile hum of mortality. One of them has just died. This whole thing makes me very sad.

Brice Randall Bickford‘s sophomore album, Paro, is out on Keeled Scales. It makes a lovely soundtrack for introspection (or contemplating the end of the world as we know it due to bee extinction.) Buy it here.