Opening credits roll as we fade into a bright, sunny, mild spring day in Portland, Oregon. Our main character had just finished with some yard work and had adjourned to his PC to fix his broken internet connection. Part of the tedium, of course, is shutting down his computer – we join him here. It was the moment in the day when sunlight was directly on the window to his right, shrouded in white curtains.
His loud and rickety old 2001 Gateway stubbornly closes down, and rather than the moment’s usual silence, our guy hears a steadily increasing buzz in his midst…
(zzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…)
Curious, he looks down at his computer to make sure it was really off. It was.
He looks to the windows to his right. On the curtains appears the shadow of what seems like hundreds of flying insects. Alarm sets in.
Cautiously he opens the curtain. GASP! A giant cloud of angry bees hover inches away on the other side of the window pane. Some crawling inches from his nose, trying desperately to find their way into the room – presumably to devour our hero.
He immediately jumps out of his chair, stumbles backwards and runs to the adjacent room to get a safer view, hoping his eyes are deceiving him. They are not. Well, actually, they deceived him the wrong way – there were in fact THOUSANDS of bees swarming against the front side of his house.
He pushes aside his panic to think (think goddammit, think!). He calls his father in law in hopes he’ll have the answer. He does not. All he can recommend is opening the yellow pages to call a beekeeper.
"FUCK!" our hero thinks to himself. (note: The hero and his wife, being the progressive internet-age yuppies they are, haven’t owned an actual phone book in years. With search engines capable of rendering results in seconds, there’s no need for such analog things as phone books. Unless…)
That’s right, the internet connection is broken. What now? All kinds of insane ideas run through his mind: go find a bottle of Raid? Baracade all exits? Pack up the family and move to safe harbor?
The moment quickens, the plot thickens. The dog barks. His PC is dead. This was it. His moment had come, he was sure of it. He looked up to the heavens and asked for a miracle.
And then it came to him, as if spoken by God himself – "you fool! Your PHONE’S internet connection is still active!" Desperate, and at the brink of death by a thousand bee stings, he pulls up his mobile browser and punches in the search term "beekeeping portland, or"
First result: Portland Beekeeping Association – including phone numbers for everyone on its leadership team!
He dials the president’s number. It rings. And rings. And rings. And then – another miracle – someone answers: "Hi, you’ve reached the Smith residence, please leave a message…"
He hangs up, nearly defeated. Who in their right mind would actually be available on a sunny, warm, mild spring day in Portland, OR?
He has reached his last resort. He dials the vice president – a fella named Pete. It rings twice and then there’s an answer. A human. A woman. Mustering every ounce of courage and dignity, he asks for "Pete the beekeeper."
"Let me guess – a swarm at your house?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"You’re the third person to call in three weeks. It’s happening a lot right now."
Embarrassed yet restored of a sense of calm, he asks if there’s any way Peter could come over real quick and and help us out.
No, she says, he’s out trying to get a swarm in Sellwood right now. But she will surely pass along the message and he’ll call back just as soon as he can.
He thanks her defeatedly, and with beads of sweat forming on his forehead, he hangs up. He decides it’s time to face the villain head-on. He puts on his shoes and heads outside through the back door.
The swarm had formed into a concentrated ball of madness just above his computer room window. With a sense of horror he now knew what he was up against – the ball of bees was roughly 18 inches in diameter, comprising about 5000 bees. All madly trying to penetrate the surge and find the Queen, who was busy somewhere in the depths of a gutter, building her nest and emitting the irresistible pheremone that had led them all here.
The phone rings suddenly. An unknown caller. "Hhhhelllo..?"
"Hi, is this John? It’s Pete. I understand you have a swarm?"
(Fade in Coldplay’s "I Will Fix You" to accompany a montage scene) Our hero hangs up with a deep breath of relief. Pete arrives, gets everything set up, dons his beekeeper get-up. Climbs a ladder and sweeps half the bees into a bucket. Pete doesn’t get the Queen, and isn’t sure where she is, so he sets a trap that will surely draw her and the others in by night’s end.
Roll credits to Queen’s "We are the Champions."
With only minor embellishments, this is a true story. It all happened today. The Queen’s still at large, so there’s still a couple thousand bees balled up above my head on the other side of the wall. Pete’s coming back tonight to get the rest of ’em. So far none have come into our house, which is good because Carrie’s allergic and Dom could be too.
I’m including a picture of the bee ball below.
Anyway, this is my story. If the money’s right I’ll gladly sell this script to whichever studio wants it.
