The Secret Life of Bees

I just sat out there and thought about how much I hated the peach stand, how completely and absolutely I hated it.

Many of these poor refugees, deprived of shelter and ambrosia, were now forced to work at some plebeian trade in order to earn a livelihood. Heine, Heinrich

An Associated Press cameraman who accompanied a rescue crew heard two men’s anguished cries for help; it was unknown Friday whether they were still alive.

He decided that the anointed time occurred later that day, after he received his presents.

But increasingly, scientists are being proactive, seeking artistic tools to bolster their research. Nature (Apr 24, 2013)

Even Katie Couric's much anticipated new talk show has not yet emerged as a bona fide hit, the executive said.

After my morning of capturing bees, I spent the afternoon in the peach stand out on the highway, selling T. Ray’s peaches.

She’d thrown her husband out three years after they married, for carousing.

Here are preserved many ancient inscriptions, and other fragments from the neighbouring catacombs. Hare, Augustus J. C.

There was nothing I hated worse than clumps of whispering girls who got quiet when I passed.

Believe it or not, real products are far more exciting than fictional items concocted by overzealous analysts. Forbes (Feb 13, 2013)

I was trying to have an open mind, but the phrase conjured up an apology rooted on a disavowal of fault that made me cringe.

The consignment had not been distributed to consumers, the government body said.

For Woods, there is little consolation in finishing fourth.

Use of cell phones, however, has caused some consternation among educators.

International Paper is the largest North American producer of corrugated packaging, commonly used to make shipping boxes.

In the salon, under a reading lamp, sat a man whose iron-gray hair was patched with cowlicks. Koerner, W. H. D. (William Henry Dethlef)

Well, pretty much as we are: wise, cunning, manipulative and very clever too.

Doctors have long recognized that allergens, such as dust, mold and pet dander, and air pollutants can trigger asthma attacks. Scientific American (Jun 20, 2012)

He spent the next year in the shadows, demoralized and depressed, before surging back in December.

Players wore short skirts, took classes in etiquette and charm, were often accompanied by chaperons.

Childbirth was nothing in comparison to the excruciating pain of invasive plastic surgery. Salon (Apr 27, 2013)

I sat on a Coke crate and watched pickups zoom by till I was nearly poisoned with exhaust fumes and boredom.

I started picking scabs off my body and, when I didn’t have any, gnawing the flesh around my fingernails till I was a bleeding wreck.

I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one. throwing itself against the glass over and over with pops and clicks, reminding me of the hail that landed sometimes on the windows.

As Napoléon hastened towards the capital in March, covering two hundred miles in six days, Louis grew increasingly anxious. Scientific American (Mar 1, 2013)

I followed her into the closet and scooted beneath dress hems and pant legs, into darkness and wisps of dust and little dead moths, back where orchard mud and the moldy smell of peaches clung to T. Ray’s boots.

I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one. throwing itself against the glass over and over with pops and clicks, reminding me of the hail that landed sometimes on the windows.

The Hall of Fame's induction ceremony is also taking place Thursday, in Los Angeles. Seattle Times (Apr 18, 2013)

When she dies suddenly, he comes up with an ingenious way of turning back time by travelling into deep space.

Still, I couldn’t let the matter go entirely— T. Ray thinking I was so desperate I would invent an invasion of bees to get attention.

I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing build in my chest.

Gandhi offered many platitudes cloaked in meandering metaphors about why India needs to get back to growth.

There was melancholy in seeing other people having fun.

One squats down, eating long-discarded chunks of food as he seeks out barely edible morsels.

My daddy— who I called T. Ray because “Daddy” never fit him— had pulled her out of the peach orchard, where she’d worked as one of his pickers.

It was not merely making me miserable, but ornery as well.

I’d made the jar as nice as I could with felty petals, fat with pollen, and more than enough nail holes in the lid to keep the bees from perishing, since for all I knew, people might come back one day as the very thing they killed.

At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin.

You can tell he thinks it would be a touch presumptuous to talk about such things, especially since he is no longer leading Ireland.

Yet some Republicans recoiled at the prospect of raising taxes at all. Time (Dec 31, 2012)

“We thank the local authorities for quickly resolving this issue,” Sony said.

The newspaper’s revelations led to probes by both local and federal inspectors general, neither of which turned up evidence of widespread cheating.

Some locals believe they can chase away evil spirits with fire rituals. Wall Street Journal (Mar 17, 2013)

Josh reluctantly pulled his lanky frame up and sauntered across the room. Salon (Feb 24, 2013)

She had a big round face and a body that sloped out from her neck like a pup tent, and she was so black that night seemed her wiry back.

There was a photograph of a woman smirking in front of an old car, wearing a light-colored dress with padded shoulders.

“Bees swarm before death,” she’d said.

The fabrics he used were expensive too - satins, fine wools and taffeta.

I could not account for the strange tone of his voice, an unnatural sound, how it was almost, but not quite, kind.

Why do Americans seem relatively unperturbed about growing income inequality? New York Times (Mar 21, 2011)

Candlelight vigils were held in parks and on church steps.

“We do not condone vigilante justice,” the site’s moderators announced.

I started picking scabs off my body and, when I didn’t have any, gnawing the flesh around my fingernails till I was a bleeding wreck.