A Short Play About Steve’s Horrific Epiphany

Steve: Where’s Eric?
Dave: Floating in a paddling pool three gardens down.
Steve: What? Why?
Dave: The kid was flailing his arms around like a lunatic, so he bum-dropped him.
Steve: And?
Dave: And that was that. Massive abdominal rupture. Dead.
Steve: What the fuck?
Dave: It was always gonna happen, Steve. Remember how mad he got when you gave him the wrong directions to the rhododendrons? That temper of his was always going to get him killed.
Steve: But I don’t understand.
Dave: What is there to understand?
Steve: Why did he die when he bum-dropped the kid?
Dave: Because that’s what happens to us. We bum-drop, we die. Don’t tell me you didn’t know!
Steve: No, I didn’t! But –
Dave: – I imagine this has come as something of a shock.
Steve: You bet it has. That is some fucked-up bullshit, Dave.
Dave: I know.
Steve: Do you know how many times I’ve nearly bum-dropped someone for a laugh?
Dave: It’s a cruel fate my friend. Not only are we critical to their survival, but we die if we hurt them.
Steve: Honestly, I just can’t…
Dave: Let it go Steve. You’ve got to keep calm.
Steve: I’m not sure I can Dave.
Dave: Just don’t do anything stupid. They’re not worth it.

Thomas asked me on the way to school this morning if honey bees know they will die if they sting…

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1

leawritesthings on March 23, 2017 at 1:13 pm
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Okay so the picture hadn’t loaded when I first started reading this so you can imagine, I was slightly baffled but I rolled with it anyway. I think the effect is better not knowing at all because I found it hilarious and very clever. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

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  Ben on March 23, 2017 at 1:14 pm
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  Thank you! Perhaps I should change the image…
  
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Mandie Hines on March 23, 2017 at 2:47 pm
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Quite enjoyable, Ben. I should have paid more attention to the picture, but I kind of enjoyed discovering what was going on as I read the story.

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  Ben on March 23, 2017 at 2:56 pm
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  It’s interesting, I didn’t write it to be confusing as to what the subject was but that’s how people have read it. I originally had them calling it a sting instead of a bum-drop but then realised they wouldn’t call it a sting. The idea of a bee finding all this out later than his mates amused me, but this one probably deserves a bit more work. That’s the beauty of writing regular flash fiction I suppose, some stories finish fully-formed, others are just sparks for something bigger. Either that or I should have just held on to it, given it some love and published it when it was done!
  
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    Mandie Hines on March 23, 2017 at 3:14 pm
    
    I know why it was tricky for me. Other than the picture, there’s no other immediate clue that you’re speaking about bees, even something as simple as the names are very normal human names (although, don’t ask me to tell you normal bee names). It’s a unique perspective, and probably why it comes off as delight once the reader figures out that they’re not people. I ended up getting hung up on the sentence that read, “The kid was flailing his arms around like a lunatic, so he bum-dropped him.” As a reader, I made the assumption that “The kid” referred to Eric, so the “he” later in the sentence seems like some unnamed mysterious person. So I read along thinking it was perhaps an error, but had an a-ha moment at the point I understood they were bees and that the sentence made sense, and it comes off as amusing because of the surprise.
    I like the story as it is, but this is just where I went as a reader so you know the areas that led to the assumptions that created the confusion, if you want to call it that.
    I like the bum-drop as opposed to sting as well. Good choice and reasoning behind that.
    
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    Ben on March 23, 2017 at 4:08 pm
    
    Thanks Mandie. Creating gaps in knowledge, either between characters, or between the text and the reader, is a fun way to create conflict so I suppose I succeeded there 🙂
    
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