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sweet scent of the midnight-colored fruits painted the air so thickly
that Lizbeth reckoned her nostrils had been gilded by it and she'd never
smell another aroma again. A straight path ran through the center of
the bushes. Myriad bees used this lane as the thoroughfare of their
organic village. Lizberh, whenever she was near, had to halt and admire
the insects for their determination, their ability to work together as a
community and thrive; and she could not help but imagine the splendor
her town would hold if only these bees could dive into the ears of her
neighbors, latch with their limbs of string onto the brains' levers, and
take over those bodies capable of building and maintaining structures
that peer over even the loftiest trees. "I bet the first thing they would do
is fix the windmill," she said in a voice loud enough for the bees to over-
hear, as if in hopes that one of the buzzers with an advanced set of vocal
chords would zip to her nose, perch there, and offer her the assistance
of his swarm in repairing her town. With a sigh she moved on. Most
would have given the bustling plot a wide berth, for a stinger to the skin
was easy to catch in this area, but Lizbeth cut through the bushes, trying
with her eyes to track the path of a single bee looping, landing, becom-
ing lost in the thousand separate avenues the toilers traversed.

When she reached the other side, Lizbeth set about picking
a dozen red apples. A strong gust suddenly swept through, setting the
apples a-swing like a priory's bell and bringing with it the creaks and
groans of an approaching wagon. "I must hide," the girl gasped, as she
was alone, weaporiless, in a lawless wood in which it was not uncommon
for heathens to tread. She found a spot in a patch of dense foliage and,
breathing in short pants, peeked out from between the leaves.

Amongst the creaks was the sound of a man crying out many
different expressions thatheld the same meaning: Ouch. "Yaghh!" he
called, and "Kehhhl" and, once, "Chicken legs!"

"Keep me safe. Please, keep me safe;' Lizberh whispered to the
leaves.

Finally, the caller came into Lizbeth's sight. It was indeed a
man, an old one, though he was alone, with a wide-brimmed cloth hat,
which sank so low on his head that it covered his eyes and nose. In fact,
all that fell from under the cap, other than a bent, blue-robed body, was
a beard, white as the clouds overhead, whose length nearly doubled that
of its grower. He was riding a brown mule who seemed to be grinning

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