The Three Hornets of the Art Show Porta-Potty

A fictional story by Dan Bondroff

T’was a hot afternoon and I had very little sleep the night before. I just finished setting up my booth, and I had to use the restroom. The art show supplies porta-potties, so I made my way over to them. While sitting there, I noticed from the corner of the floor a yellow and black hornet had crawled in. We stared at each other for a moment as he crawled towards me. Not wanting to anger him I sat very still and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes, the hornet was right there in front of me, hovering about 6 inches from my face. The hornet was now a beautiful cerulean blue and his wings were a shimmering silver and he said to me, “I am the hornet of inner peace. I have come here to offer you inner peace, and there is only one condition. If you choose a lifetime of inner peace, you will never again get a good night’s sleep.”

Then all of a sudden, another hornet flies in. This hornet was the most calm, peaceful lavender you've ever seen. It’s wings resembled sparkling clouds. This lavender hornet scooted right up next to the blue hornet and looked at me and he said, “I am the hornet of restful sleep. I can offer you restful sleep for all the days of your life. However, there's a catch. If you choose restful sleep for all the days of your life, you'll never again have monetary success.” And as soon as he said that, in flies a third hornet. This hornet was emerald green. His glimmering wings were the most fantastic gold I’d ever seen. He scooted right in between the first two hornets and bumped them out of the way. He looked at me and he said, “I am the hornet of monetary success. I will promise you all the riches you’ll ever need for all the days of your life. You'll never need to worry about money ever again, but there's a catch. You'll never know inner peace. You’ll live the remainder of your days searching for meaning, but will never find it.”

Suddenly, the blue hornet butted back in and said, “Well, who are you going to choose? Are you gonna choose inner peace, restful sleep, or monetary success?” And I asked, “What if I don't want any of them?” And the green hornet replied, “Well, then we will sting you, and you will die.” And then I replied, “If you sting me, won't you die too? If you die, you'll never be able to make this offer to anyone ever again. They stared at me for a brief second. They knew I was calling their bluff. They started buzzing and spinning. And spinning so fast and buzzing so hard, that they looked like a big spherical rainbow. They made a singing noise like the most beautiful music ever, and they spun, and they spun, and they spun. I closed my eyes, and then there was a thump. When I opened my eyes, they were gone.

Then I heard another thump. Then a man’s voice. “Hey would you hurry up in there! There’s a line of people out here waiting to use this thing.” I looked down and saw that hornet again, the one that was yellow and black. I watched it crawl out. I shouted, “Be out in a sec”, finished my business, grabbed a glob of hand sanitizer, and headed back to my booth.

As the show was winding down that day, I sat in my booth alone contemplating the morning’s incident. And guess who flew in? My friend, the yellow and black hornet. We looked at each other, and I think he understood what I was thinking. He flew off and that was the last we saw of each other.

The end.