To be a bee, to be a paperweight

The sun has risen as have important thoughts in my mind. One is an echo of an intuition, perhaps I dreamed of it, that in a previous life I performed the duties of a paperweight. A half moon, something of a partial marble, I lorded over stacks of parchment. There my owner would perch me so to prevent my great enemy, the wind, from scattering them. I'm not sure but I suspect that this happened a long time ago because marking the pages with a succession of numbers had not yet occurred to anybody, so it was crucial that I lay atop the papers day and night, until that time that they were bound in some manner. I'm not able to recall the language of the missives - I was a paperweight for god's sake! - but it is safe to say that this was not a scrolling culture. Rather, independent and rectangular sheaves were the preferred medium, so my services were crucially necessary, especially when the stacks reached formidable heights such as two or three inches off the surface of the table. It was then that I would shine!

Though I could not see, I felt the presence of the others: the ink well, the small receptacle which held the writer's quill, a bag of pistachios. Occasionally eye glasses would be lain on the table. Myself and the others would wince in jealousy over the great prestige of the eye glasses, for really, if not for them where would the rest of us be? I would still be in some quarry or another, merged forever with the rest of the simple rocks and minerals. Thanks to the skilled lens grinder though, I too provided a function to the world. One time I was resting upon what I gather must have been a french translation of those Arabic folk tales known as 1001 Nights. The scribe was endlessly giggling and banging is fist against the desk, stopping only occasionally to partake (I suspected from his grunting and moaning) in the practice of onan. What else should we expect from that heathen celebration of sin? So I have a feeling that the years passed in this manner, I sitting atop a steadily growing stack of parchment, my comrades quill, inkwell and pistachio near by, our owner either slamming his fist down in mirth or masturbating, also in mirth.

The trail ends here. I have no further insights into the existence of an old paperweight. Ah, but what dreams. Were it not that I could provide such a function in present times. It would be of more value than my present labors. Currently I provide something of the services of a worker bee, endlessly excreting sugary beverages, cleaning excrement and carrying off the carcasses of my fallen colleagues. Occasionally I spot the queen and her arrogant court, always scuttling about the hive, always capriciously, and of course being just a short-lived minion, it goes without saying that I must stop what I'm doing and get out of their way. Once I was busy on a project, building a modest hexagonal cell to partake in the wonder our comb, when out of no where that beast of a queen shows up, plops her vast abdomen into my partially built chamber and lets drop - wow, what do you know? - yet another confounded larva! Another bastard for the colony! As if we didn't have enough already! The courtiers murmur some praise ("A most excellent birthing your majesty!") and her lordship saunters off without so much as a glance in my direction. Well, I can accept my lot, only because I know that in the life that comes after I might return as a queen myself, or better still, a paperweight.