Dedicated to summer's tender bud — Layla Albert Badre

•

She sat alone by the window.

Her gaze was divided between

a dress and needle in her hands,

a book lying open on the table before her,

and a company of worker bees hovering in the garden beyond..

On her lips was the ghost of a quiet smile that only a mother's lips know.

And in her mind stirred the image of an unborn child whose eyes had not yet seen the light.

How sweet he will be the day he is born and fills her breast with happiness..

•

The worker bees grew busy, and their humming began to weave itself into a sweet melody that ran through her limbs and filled her eyes, until they seemed to change into gentle, luminous creatures gathering before the window and speaking to her...

And the needle stopped..

And the book fell silent..

•

"I am Health," said one of them. "I touch the unborn child, and well-being runs like rosy blood in his veins; no sickness comes near him, and no burdens; he walks and does not tire, he runs and does not weary"..

"No," said the second. "I am Wealth. Let me touch your child, and I will fill his coffers with the gold of the earth and its bounties; his hand shall never know want, and every desire of his heart he shall obtain."

"I am Fame," said a third. "I will raise him a banner above all banners; he shall fill every ear and every eye, and in the book of immortality I will write his name"..

"I am Love," said another, "the greatest thing in the world. I touch the child, and he shall not walk alone in the wilderness of life; the darkness before him shall shine like day; let him ask for help, and hands by the thousands will reach out to him"..

And the mother felt the child stir within her..

"But I am Intelligence," said a fifth. "I touch him and set flowing in him the springs of genius, and everything he does shall prosper — his the way of the valiant soldier, the wise statesman, the balanced thinker, the brilliant man of letters born neither before his time nor after it; and the bitterness of failure shall find no path to his heart"...

And the bees began to clamor about the head of the dazed mother, each wanting to be the first to touch the child.

But the shadow of one sweet bee came cleaving the air like a thread of light, swiftly, and stopped before the mother in silence; then she stretched out her hand to touch the child, and the mother drew back in alarm, asking: What do you mean to give my child?

She answered: "Not as my companions give shall I give him.. I shall not grant him a health that reddens his cheeks, but a consuming fever of which he will be healed only when his life is healed..

Nor shall I grant riches to his coffers; rather, whenever he bows before money to possess it, a heavenly light shall shine above him, and the money in his hands shall dim its light and vanish..

I shall not give him fame; instead I shall set his path in a barren wilderness, tracking a trace that no human eye but his can see, drawn by a human finger over the dunes of sand..

As for love, he will seek it with longing and not find it; its beguiling light on the far horizons will draw him, and he will walk toward it alone and without a guide."

The mother broke in, saying: "But will he triumph?"

She answered: "Failure shall be his ally, and when he runs with the others for the prize, they will outstrip him to it. Strange voices will call him, and wondrous lights will beckon and point, and he must stop and listen.. And stranger than all this, he will see an azure sea in the desert where no one else sees anything but mirage.. and the sands beneath his feet will blossom.. and out of the sea high mountains will rise, crowned with molten gold like snows."

"And will he reach those summits?" asked the mother, yearning.

But the bee laughed to herself and did not answer.

And the mother asked again: "In God's name.. is what you say truth, or fancy?"

She answered: And what is truth??

The mother searched her face, then said: "Touch him"..

So she bent over the sleeping child and whispered in his ear words of which the mother heard only the last:

"This is your recompense: the wellspring of visions in your eyes shall never run dry, and the ideal shall be real to you."

The mother drew a deep breath, and the child stirred within her.. He too was dreaming a dream; in his eyes that had never beheld the light, and in his small brain not yet complete, a delicate feeling was astir, groping for a passage to the light.. a light he had never seen and perhaps would never see.. yet a truth existing somewhere in the unknown reaches of being...

And who knows.. perhaps he received his recompense while yet unborn...