There are so many bees in the wall that the outlets are leaking honey. Ants come looking for sweetness, marking black streaks like sesame seeds up the molding. When I stand near, I can hear the buzzing, a deep vibration like the hum of a car radio out on the street. I can feel the wall’s warmth in the room. We stay in the warm house forever. If it were up to me, that’s where we’d be now: together, in the golden light, sunflowers on our dining room table, the calendar never changing, the clock stopped. 

There were bees in the house when we moved in, so I guess we’re the infestation. We give the hive a wide berth, but Caroline puts a bowl on the ground under the outlet to catch the honey. I warn her that it’ll be too full of ants to eat, dirty from the wall, probably holding flakes of chipping paint. But we watch the bowl fill over the course of a day, and when the orange light comes through the window at dusk and rests just exactly along that stretch of floor, the glass bowl glows through with golden honey like a gemstone, and there is not a single ant in there. Caroline picks it up, puts down a new bowl, and brings the honey into the kitchen. We stir it into our tea, drizzle it over toasted brown bread for dessert, and go out onto the porch. We watch the sun set over fields of sunflowers. The earth is gold, and everything glows. Everything glows and stays.