I dreamed the bees were voting on a new queen

I was standing at the edge of a hive that wasn’t mine, watching them file past in single file—each one carrying a tiny ballot made of pollen. No one spoke, but I could feel the weight of their silence like a warm breath on my neck. The queen they chose? A bee with no wings, just a quiet hum and a face like someone who’d already lost everything. When I woke up, the real hives were so still I thought I’d heard the same sound—the kind that comes after a decision’s been made, but before anyone knows what it means.