This morning, I got stung by a bee. I was walking across a patch of grass in Cal Anderson Park that seemed innocent enough. As always, my mind was completely elsewhere (I had a dream that involved my dead father making a rocket and launching Africa's first satellite from the backyard of our Harare home—what did the dream mean? And why did the satellite, designed by my sister, look like an upside down tripod?), when I noticed something was happening in the area around my left shoe.

A bee stung me!

A bee stuck itself into me. A part of its hideous little body entered my body. And the pain was instant. And almost as instantly, I noticed all of the busy bees around me, working dandelion flowers. They all had stingers that could be plunged into this dumb giant. Because I, the giant, was suddenly entangled with a world (dealing with the sharpening pain, hopping over the other irritated bees, trying to get off that buzzing patch of grass as fast as possible) that was invisible to all other giants, I looked completely mad.

When finally out of trouble and in the safety of a gravel path, I noticed an elderly white couple walking toward me. They were clearly worried. The man became manly and stepped in front of his woman, as if to defend her from the black lunatic. I told them I had just been stung by a bee, and pointed to the patch of grass. It was alive with the fuckers. The couple relaxed.

"Sorry," said the elderly man, who looked like a retired financial adviser. "It's just, we are on Capitol Hill and it's hard to tell if someone is crazy or not." They smiled and continued walking around the park. Despite all of the gentrification, Capitol Hill still has a bad reputation.