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Today I will be reading you a very tiny excerpt from the book, The Secret Life of Bees.

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It is a book that I found in my first year of high school and absolutely fell in love

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with because it was just so beautifully written.

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I usually get kind of nervous reading things, and I don't know why that is.

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So I'll do my best to try and kind of make it immersive, but there's probably a chance

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I'm going to fucking speed read through it, and I'm really sorry in advance.

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But I will do my best.

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At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks

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of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched

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zzzz that hummed along my skin.

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

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in my chest.

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The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of

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the wind, split my heart down its seam.

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During the day I heard them tunneling through the walls of my bedroom, sounding like a radio

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tuned to static in the next room, and I imagined them in there, turning the walls into honeycombs,

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with honey seeping out for me to taste.

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The bees came the summer of 1964, the summer I turned fourteen, and my life went spinning

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off into a whole new orbit.

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And I mean WHOLE new orbit.

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Looking back on it now, I want to say the bees were sent to me.

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I want to say they showed up like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary, setting

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events in motion.

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I could have never guessed.

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I know it is presumptuous to compare my small life to hers, but I have reason to believe

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she wouldn't mind.

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I will get to that.

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Right now it's enough to say that, despite everything that happened that summer, I remain

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tender towards the bees.

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I might try to read the whole chapter one when I get time, but that's all the time

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I have.

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I'm so sorry, but I hope you enjoyed it.

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So thank you for requesting that, that was a lot of fun.