During the second summer of the pandemic, I made my way from my apartment in Vancouver to my parents’ home in Saint John for an extended visit. I was thirty-six and burnt out: a high-intensity job, months of social isolation, the loss of a grandmother, and a year and a half on the other side of the country from family had taken their toll.
(In fact, I should probably be recommending to you the book Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski, a text that helped me clearly identify how close to the bone I’d been worn. To this day, my father counts a full twenty seconds when we hug, to ensure we’re completing a stress cycle. It’s both endearing and effective. But that’s a story for another time.)
The visit that was meant to last a month turned into six. I took long walks around Rockwood Park. I lay on the couch, mainlining the entirety of Downton Abbey and half of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I practiced making hot cross buns with my mother, a recipe I still can’t quite reproduce on my own. And, when it became apparent early on that I needed to, I left my job.
As a farewell, my former employer gave me Saint John-themed presents: credit at The Imperial, a gift card to Scheherazade Books & Music. Over my months in town, I dropped into the bookstore from time to time to order a specific poetry collection or browse the shelves. It was on my last visit, as I readied myself to return to Vancouver and the life I was rebuilding, that brought me to The Bees.
On the shelf of recommended novels, The Bees sounded exactly strange enough: published in 2014 and written by British novelist, playwright, and screenwriter Laline Paull, the story centres around sanitation bee Flora 717, who, larger and darker than her fellow workers, finds herself at odds with the obedience demanded by her hive. I’m sure I picked it up for the bright yellow of its cover.
And then it picked me up and swallowed me whole. Paull constructs a complete universe, populated with brave foragers, inebriated drones, and seductive, murderous wasps—anchored by the tension Flora 717 feels between the chemical imperatives of the hive and the signals she receives from her own uncommon body. I was completely charmed, to the point where I emailed a bookish friend, “When I tell you I have never loved a protagonist more, I am only being slightly hyperbolic.”
The Bees shrank me down to size and turned my problems into measurable threats: diminishing food stores, bored male suitors, an invading mouse. It was immersive at a time where I’d lost—and was recovering—my own sense of plot. It changed something I am moderately afraid of (loud flying insects that sting) into a species to root for.
And coming out of The Bad TimesTM of the pandemic, it was nice to be reminded what stories are capable of. That, at their best, they can transfigure even the most regular of creatures. I hope Flora 717 finds you, too, when you need her the most.
— Emily Davidson is a creative writer from Saint John, New Brunswick. She is the author of Lift (Thistledown Press, 2019), and her poetry and fiction have appeared in publications across the country. Emily holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, and resides in Vancouver.
You can read Emily Davidson's poetry in Issue 306 (Winter 2026). Order the issue now!
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