Madona Tyler LeBlanc
“Slings and Arrows”
Collage and watercolor
Response
Inspiration piece
Minh Vu adjusted his mesh hat and veil. The material allowed in air, but not bees. Carefully, he positioned the cherry picker high in the boughs of the swarming linden. Three years earlier, the police department had advertised for an apiarist.
At the time, Minh had been a graduate student in Museology. Although his research area in museum multiculturalism had inspired him, his food insecurity had left him literally wanting. Weighing his parents’ Hanoi experiences with drought, urbanization and floods’ impact on their Apis Cerana hives against his being hungry for an unknown additional number of years, he interviewed for and received the part-time job. After receiving: twenty-two weeks of training, a 9mm pistol, and a set of handcuffs, Minh became a policeman.
These days, he has food, but not friends or a completed dissertation. What’s more, he endures the repeated, painful lesson that human stings always hurt more than insect ones; people can build up a tolerance to bee venom, but not to the punctures of coworkers’ words.
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