The Bee

Once upon a time there was a giant bee who injected its sting into a ripe plum. The plum erupted at once, its juices a mild lava. It had fallen from a tree on a day when koalas were being burnt high in the gum trees above. That was the day the temperature hit 50C. People had walked through the main town earlier that day, 44 degrees at 9am, wiping their brows with saturated sleeves, their brains frying underneath the weathered layer of skin on their foreheads. They had been the lucky ones, they had survived until now. The bee, sensing danger, flew above the fire level, watching the inhabitants' lives swept aside in a raging blaze of hatred, the devil had come to play. Later on the bee surveyed the aftermath; everything charcoaled. On closer inspection it saw the plum still there, squirting its dark, hot juices into the air. Flooded by its own insides gushing back down, it slowly caved in. The bee zeroed in for a taste.