The Wasp's Nest
There’s a wasp’s nest hanging from the upper sash of one of the windows outside my bedroom. I think it has been long since abandoned, but I haven’t taken it down. Perhaps I am mistaken and it hasn’t been forgotten by those who built it; but that isn’t my concern nor the reason I’ve left it there on the window sash. In truth, I think I have developed a great sympathy for the wasps—or I tell myself the word "sympathy" to make my feelings seem nobler and to escape the barbarity of admitting it’s pity I feel. That seems so belittling, so unfair of me, petty and callous; and oh how I'd like so desperately to think better of myself. Little wonder it would be then if I tell myself as I do; that I would lie to myself that I don't behave out of heartlessness, but an excess of heart. They deserve more than I can give them, so I will give them everything. It’s all I can, and the least I can do.
They used to be horses, the wasps. Someone turned them into wasps; I don’t know who it was, I have avoided reading the news. If anyone told me the name, I have conveniently forgotten it; I do not wish to know. I heard they have caught the miscreant and put him to death. He didn’t deserve it, but that was never the question. Then again, perhaps it isn’t true and whoever did the deed is free. Part of me hopes so, anyway, though I couldn’t begin to say why. I suppose... Yes, what do I suppose? I suppose I can’t truly be sure that these wasps are those same wasps who once were horses. I suppose they might be ordinary wasps, just as any others who have made their nests here countless times before. But that changes nothing. That changes nothing.
Do they remember when they were horses, running wild through fields of grasses and wildflower, strong and huge, feeling the warm summer breezes rushing through their manes—do they remember, do you think? Do they remember that freedom unmoored from the nest? Do they remember the long years of a horse’s life? Now, as they are, in the brief candle of a wasp’s existence, somewhere out there in this world over Hell, returning—to that nest or another—day in and day out until those passing few days soon pass no more. Do they know what it was they have lost, what has been taken from them? I don’t want to think of it.
I do think of it.