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Oscar held the ice pack up to his hand — soothing the red and angry bump beneath. It had itched for the better part of the day, but had gone down considerably from its original, quite concerning size.
The scientist had apologies profusely, tears in his eyes and practically bowing at his feet. He had probably thought he’d be loosing his job at the best, or have the entire facility shut down at the worst.
Oscar had assured him to the best of his ability that nothing was going to happen. It hadn’t seemed to work. His media chief had also been looking paler than usual since the incident.
Oscar had been honored when they had announced that the world’s first successful fossil-specimen revivification would be a wasp named after him. In hindsight; deciding that he should visit said wasp for a media stunt had not been the best idea.
The facilities had been white and sterile, but more normal looking than anticipated. Oscar had imagined it looking more futuristic than it actually was. He guessed science were still far away from looking like that in movies.
The people had been nice, surprisingly outgoing, and shown him and the media team around the different rooms; explaining in easily digestible words what they did.
Oscar had learned his name-brother wasp friend had been brought back to life as the result of some sort of heavy radiation experiments.
Oscar had posed in a custom lab coat with the facilities logo and the number 81 embroidered on the chest. Holding a small glass cube up beside his face and trying his best not to make his smile looked too awkward.
The wasp had buzzed around inside its cage and sat down at the bottom part which were reading in Oscar’s hand. Suddenly a burning sensation had shot though him and he’d cried out and tried his best not to drop the thing.
It had already died out once, and Oscar — for all the shock and pain — did not want to be the reason it went extinct again.
They had taken it off his hands, ushered him away and straight to the hospital wing were they had treated him. That part in particular was kind of a blur. Apparently the wasp had stung right through the glass.
After the whole ordeal they had reassured him there was no danger of radiation contamination. He would have a slightly larger than average lump, but otherwise it would heal like a normal sting.
So he had gone home and not thought much about it.
He was back in the garage already the next day.
***
The sun was trying its best to cook them alive. The asphalt on the track was absorbing the heat and making the air above it vibrate. The sound of mechanics running around was slowly being defeated by the arriving crowd.
Oscar’s head has been buzzing the entire day. He’d managed to relieve the worse of the pressure with a painkiller, but he had the sneaking suspicious that he was starting to run a fever.
His hands were clutching tight around the steering wheel, and he could feel his fingers inside the gloves were clammy.
They were in the last quarter of the race. Overall qualifying had landed him in P5. Behind Max, his team mate and the two Mercedes cars.
He’s fallen to P7, far enough behind that there’s no change of fighting for pole, and just in a prime spot so the gap between cars has started to cause traffic. Oscar saw the rear view of his sister-car take off down the straight. In the mirror behind he saw more closing in. Fast.
That's when he hears it. It's like a mild buzzing in his ear. Far away and sounding like it tries to break though static. The buzzing turns to comprehendible words, sounding like they were delivered through a layer of water.
“Those wheels doesn’t look good. 81 should box.”
“He can’t do that, he’s gonna loose too much time.”
“He doesn’t stand a chance anyway, best he can do is get new tires and try and hold.”
“But the traffic is gonna — Oh look! Number tree overtake!”
Oscar shakes his head. They radio line must he opened.
He presses the radio button. “What?”
It takes only a second for the response.
“Everything alright Oscar?” He hears Tom’s voice crackling loud and clear.
“Yeah, did you tell be to box?”
“Eh, negative; we did not. Proceed as normal.”
He catches a glimpse of the reflection in the empty mirror. He sees the rear car in front disappearing behind the next turn.
“Right…Copy that.” He tried to clear his head.
The buzzing didn’t stop. Oscar craned his neck. Breath — Concentrate. Finish the race one turn at a time. The wheels were still good, still felt like they had a few rounds. If he could make it up and out of the little cluster of cars that had formed around him, he could probably make the hards last.
Red came up beside him. One second in mirror, the next in the corner of his eye. He heard it. Wheels thundering, pushing closer. Oscar held, rearing the car to stay in place, forcing the Ferrari back. It didn’t give up. Oscar’s line had been too sharp. He’d lost speed. It gave the other a change to catch up. The sound of the engine rose again, and unlike a lion the horse still had a lot more to give.
The angle of the next corner was wrong. Oscar lost the inner position. He was pushed out. Forced to increase the arch or hit the car. When he tried to stabilize the car didn’t want to listen. His arms tense as he pulls the steels wheel in the opposite direction with all his might. The car coughed. The wheels shaking under him, vibrating through his core as they ran out of track.
Oscars whole body is trashed forward. He is suddenly gasping for air. Water rushing inside this head. Bells ringing in his ears.
He sits there for what must only have been a few seconds. Getting his breath under control and brain back into logic mode. He wiggled his toes, his feet, and as the world returns to normal he concludes that he’s alright.
He heard his team on the radio asking if he's okay. Trying to get him to give a response.
Oscar fumbles to find the radio button and presses it with shaking hands.
'I'm fine," He managed to cough out, voice raw. He hears the collective exhales of the team as they breath a sigh of relief.
Oscar leans back, his head hitting the back of the seat as he takes a deep breath and tries not to think about that this must be what it feels like to slowly go insane.
It doesn’t work.
He lays on his back on the hotel bed staring up at the empty white roof.
The echoes of the voice replaying in his head. Because the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it was a voice — not just some high pitched engine sounds his brain was distorting to make resemble words.
He’d refrained from asking medical when they did a post race checkup. Mostly because: "I think I’m hearing tiny voices in my head.” Would most likely get him benched for the foreseeable future; if not dragged kicking and screaming into a white padded room. It would possibly have given the medical staff a small heart attack if they believed it to be a consequence of the crash.
A few days break would help. Oscar closed his eyes and didn’t sleep.
***
Oscar was sitting with his head in his hands, listening to the mixed sounds of engineers scurrying around the pit, checking and double checking lists, and wind bringing with the voices of the spectators of today’s race. And last but not least that vibrating sound of tiny buzzing in his ear.
It was obviously that something was wrong with him. Ever since the crash the voices had only gotten louder, and more pronounced. They seemed to find him no matter what. He’d believed they would get weaker when the surroundings was busy, but every time he went outside the door of his hotel or the motorhome they somehow got louder.
The moment he knew they were definitely his own hallucination was the when they start talking about his car.
All sorts of comments about the engine, the wheels, the competition, the color. Praises and criticisms that Oscar didn’t know how his brain could even come up with. Things he had never would have thought about, and some that he had but never voiced.
He expected them to fade after a while. But when they didn’t Oscar was to surprised to find he didn’t mind it all that much. It became like having a few extra stray thoughts to keep track off, but their input was welcomed, and sometimes even useful.
The first time he’d actually acted on the unsolicited advice was after a really qualifying, he’d ended so far back in the middle that it couldn’t possibly hurt.
“They should start with softs todays. It's gonna start to rain soon.”
“Nobody’s going to think it’s gonna rain. There's not a cloud on the sky.”
“I tell you it’s gonna rain any moment. I can feel it in my wings. Its gonna be a lot.”
“How long do you think?”
“Maybe a few laps at best. It's gonna last maybe half the race. We're gonna have to find a dry place if want to watch.”
Zak came up to him. His headset slung around his neck while he directed Oscar to the strategy plan for the race.
“Were starting you on hards today, it’s a bit of a gamble but the track is right, and if we can keep you out on the track you can outlast before we pit —” He begun.
"I think we should start with softs. I have a feeling we're gonna have to switch to wets pretty soon. We won’t have time to outlast.”
Zak craned his neck, hands on his hips looking skeptical upwards. "Theres not a cloud in the sky."
Oscar shrugged.trying to stay nonchalant as his heart was pounding in his chest.
What was he doing? Listening to the crazy voices in his head.
“The weather around here is unstable, you know that. And I read somewhere reliable there was a high change of rain today.” He said out loud instead. “Besides, inters not gonna hurt either way. I’ll gain the positions fast, and we’ll pit for hards or wets after. Won’t cost us anything.”
The older hummed.
“And we need to rethink strategy for heavy rain. If we do it now, we’ll gain the advantage when it starts.” Oscar finished with, what he hoped, came across as confidence.
Zak looked at him with skeptical eyes and a curious raised eyebrow. Oscar tried his best to give his best steadfast look, even if he felt like the ground he was standing on was made up of quicksand.
"If you say so," He said at last, and put a steady hand on Oscar’s shoulder before walking away. He called over the team, conveying the message that got him a few weird looks.
Oscar closed his eyes and tried to breath. If he was wrong Zak would probably never let him input anything that had to with strategy ever again.
The voices hummed in approval.
“See, this guy gets it. Smart one that one is.” Oscar herd around him.
The rain came in on round seven. It was like someone had slashed a wound in the very sky.
The pits were in chaos as crew's scrambled to rethink strategy on fly. Should they keep the car out? Was it going to commuting to rain or was it over soon? How much time would they loose if they had to switch again?
Zak had radioed him during the most chaotic period, telling him he should stay out and that he'd make a good call.
If Oscar wasn't concentrating so hard to keep his car on the track, he'd maybe have felt a bit of prideful giddiness swell up inside him.
***
Someone had a radio on somewhere in the garage. A low singing voice, barely above a whisper, echoed through the space. The song was nonsensical, not accompanied by any music and frankly quite distracting. Oscar was leaning against the wall, trying to get a couple of minutes rest before the next session.
A half eaten sandwich was left on the paper plate. It was sitting between a pyramid of wrenches, and if Oscar hadn’t already known that all engineers had to be at least a little bit crazy — it was a pickle mayonnaise sandwich.
There was a fly circling it, humming low to itself, and Oscar realized suddenly that what he had previously thought was the radio came from the direction of the sandwich. More specifically…the fly? This was the first time Oscar had been able to pinpoint a source for his hallucinations outside of himself.
Oscar crouched near the table so he was eye height with the bread.
The fly had landed and was skittering across the crust. Stopping here and there to rub its tiny stick hands together.
“Food for me. Food for me. All mine. All mine.” Oscar heard it say…
Oscar heard it say.
Which was ridiculous because flies did not talk. He didn’t even know if flies had mouths. Or…He knew they had, but no ones that talked.
The fly seemed to have noticed him staring. Because it turned to him. Round tiny bumpy beads staring him down.
“Hey pal — Didn’t your parents tell you it isn’t nice to stare?”
“What the — you can talk?” He shriek. The fly looked at him. It moved its head with jittering motions back and forth. Oscar quickly took a look around, but the garage was empty except for him.
“Yeah, like it’s hard.”
Oscar stared dumbfounded at the fly. The situation was bizarre. Sitting in the garage where a fly giving him sass.
“I mean…I just haven’t ever heard it before.”
“Not that you humans ever care to listen anyway.” The fly spit. “You guys feel entitled to everything. I mean just look at this. Perfectly good feast just abandoned, and yet you guys act crazy when we fly at the chance.”
“I’m sorry?” Oscar made a mental note to throw the sandwich out later. He couldn’t let some poor engineer eat talking fly drool with good conscious.
“Oh leave the guy alone. It’s not like we’ve had anyone ask that before.” Another voice said. And Oscar looked around bewildered.
“Up here!” The voice directed and his eyes stopped at small angled cobweb in the roof above him, interwoven between the hanging lights and metal. A small spider came crawling out from its hiding space and waved one of its eight legs.
“Don’t listen to him 81, he’s just jealous.”
The fly grumbled, but went straight back to mapping out the rest of the lunch with its feet.
“Are you the guys who keeps talking about the races and cars? I keep hearing these noises in my head.” He needs to know if this was the reason why he kept hearing voices. Because honestly, if not this, then he was without a doubt just crazy.
The spider tapped a foot against its…chin? Like a human contemplating the importance of life.
“I would personally ask the bees about that. They are alway buzzing around the track. Loves the cars. Me personally find the noise quite annoying. Do you have any idea how hard it is to spin when surrounded by such racket? I would move, but this was my mother’s mothers web and I have just renovated so I should live here at least a few months…you know?”
“Oh…Okay.” Oscar said a little too calmly. “It — it looks nice.”
“Thank you. It does.” The spider agreed.
***
Oscar felt like an idiot where he was casually talking a stroll along the edge of the race track. He kept his vision down on the neatly trimmed grass. A few stray clovers had managed to avoid the blades of the trimmers and was looking quite happy in the sea of green.
Small clusters of wild flowers had managed to sneak themselves onto the track space beneath the concrete barrier, blooming in minuscule patches of dirt in the crack of the asphalt.
He crouched down beside one where the buzzing was especially intense. Beautiful tall purple flowers in clusters decorated the green stems, and busy tiny wings were fluttering all around, carrying fluffy black and yellow bodies all over the place. Their antennas moving like small windshield wipes.
Oscar observed them work. Saw some of the tiny creatures share glances between each other.
“Don’t look. Maybe he’ll go away,” One said.
Somehow, Oscar felt like a kid standing awkwardly watching the other kids play, too scared to ask if he could join in.
“Wait — wait! Isn’t that 81?”
“I don’t know, all their faces look the same too me.”
“But it is!”
Oscar winced at the vibrating noise that ran through him. Words were were loud and clear in his head, not like the outside voices of other people talking to him. Not even like the fly or spider from earlier that had been like tiny voices far away. This he felt like a tingle in his brain that somehow, instinctually, he knew exactly what meant.
“Hi…So I heard you guys like…cars?”
The bees looked at him. Then at each other. Oscar felt like an idiot.
“Who told you that?”
“Erm…I didn’t ask their name.” And suddenly Oscar wondered if insects even had names.
“Not important. But yeah, we watch sum. Right over there — " The bee pointed towards the other side of the fence. A big tree stood on top of a little hill, twisted up and branching out in a luscious crown. “That’s were we live. And yeah we’ve been known to buzz around the garage every now and then. Have to say you aren’t looking all that hot so far this year."
“I know. Sorry.” He was disappointing bees. God, that really stung…
“Too bad too bad, we were cheering on you two.” One of the said and shook its little head.
“On me and Lando?”
“Lando?” The bee asked.
“Oh, number one! The one that smells like flowers!” The other shot in, and Oscar’s brain definitely did not know what to do with that information.
“Oh, yeah. You two have good taste. Not yellow, but the orange is close enough.”
He didn’t know what to say about that either.
“If I may ask, how do you know so much about the sport?”
“Our hive is older than the circuit, the knowledge comes in with the honey.” They looked at him as if that was the most obvious thing in the universe. And maybe for bees, it was.
He sat there talking to them for longer than he probably should. He’d gone far enough from the garages that nobody there would see him. Occationally he would be passed by someone out a track walk, and Oscar would return just as awkward of a side as he would receive.
“How…why do I hear you guy in my head?”
“We don’t talk with words. We talk with pheromones and movements. Maybe your brain translates that internally?”
And honestly, Oscar couldn’t ague with that hypothesis because he had no better idea.
When evening came and the bees decided they needed to head home he bid them goodbye. Oscar went to sleep that night with more questions than answers.
***
So far in his life, his worries had been pretty mundane. There were some he would classify as slightly more uncommon. Like what he would do if he moved across the world to race in formula. And even now that he had a spot; what if the lost it and nobody else would take him. What would he do then?
But somehow even those worries had taken a back seat to a new one. If someone found out about this — wasp incident; what would happen?
Oscar had seen movies. And although he would like to believe that humanity would in reality be better, there was still the lingering fear that he would be whisked away, tortured, and experimented on in a remote secret government facility.
If he couldn’t talk about the voices before. He definitely didn’t dare now.
Because really…if he somehow didn’t end up kidnapped by the government, there was no way the medical team would let him race if they believed he had sustained some sort of delusional hallucinations where the believed bees were feeding him secret tire strategies.
No one…
Maybe one…
He cornered Lando on his way back to the motorhome.
"I can talk to insects and the Bees are telling me what to do."
And Lando stopped and stared at him. For a second Lando Norris stood frozen in time as he took in what his teammate had just said.
"Mate, are you having a stroke?"
"No, Lando, I'm being serious."
Lando looked him up and down, brows furrowed trying his best to determine if this was one of Oscars serious faces or one of his sarcastic ones.
"I'm sorry — you’re telling me the Bees knows Formula one strategies on a level that rivals some of the best engineers and analysts in motorsport history?”
"I mean, when you say it like that it sounds insane."
"You sound insane! Oscar — did you hit your head in your last crash? Oh my god that's it isn’t it, you’ve officially snapped, we need to take you to medical — “ Lando’s took Oscar by the arm and with panic in his eyes was about ti drag him with him. Oscar planted both his feet and stood his ground.
"No.”
Lando’s head whipped around and he looked at him like a mother would a stubborn child.
“Is this some sort of shared Australian delusion? Is this why so many Australians on TV like to work with animals? Omg, Daniel once claimed he had a psychic connection to clams.”
“Wha — no? Lando listen.” Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea after all.
“Remember when I was stung by that wasp during the media shoot?”
“Yeah.”
“Well…I think that it may have had…erm…unforeseen side effects?”
“Like you’re poisoned and is slowly dying and making you hallucinate conversations?”
Oscar rolled his eyes. “Like I can talk to insects and they can talk to me.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I have an idea.”
***
McLaren had not yet given up hope this year. Sure, they had been sitting lower on the ladder than they would have wanted — or hoped for— but the desire for victory was not dead just yet. Everyone was still working and driving (and talking) as if a title was still within reach.
Oscar had learned that bees did indeed know a lot more than a thing or two about cars. In fact, they knew just about everything about everything formula one related despite the miles of land and oceans separating the tracks. He wondered if the bees watched the broadcasts somehow, or if the bee hive mind stretches further than a single hive and somehow defined the material plane.
“You should be careful in this corner. Statistically most of the DNF’s happens because you guys come in too fast right here. Last year it was three cars at this exact corner.”
Oscar and Lando was walking the track side by side accompanied by a few of the local experts. They whirred around their heads, occasionally stopping for a quick pollen break, and occasionally taking a rest in Lando’s hair. Oscar snickered as Lando sneezed loudly. Rubbing his nose until the tip was light red and brushing loose pollen from his curls.
“This is sabotage.” Lando whined.
“My grandpa was hit by number 23 here last year. Very tragic. He was only 38 days old.”
“I recommend a soft on hards today. Saw a lot of teams will start soft, there will definitely be traffic.”
“But we’ll fall behind early. You don’t want that with our cars.”
“Not necessarily. Statistically this circuit has had a safety car almost every race. This year they fixed up the roads, and it’s been holding on very well.”
“So we’ll start on hards and outlast them.” Oscar said.
“My guesses is that teams are gonna start soft because they believe the safety car will come out early. I don’t believe that’s gonna be the case this year.”
“They’re gonna loose a lot of time on that. We’ll be gaining an advantage if we can stick it out on hards.” Lando looked at him for confirmation.
“Oh — watch out here too…”
They continued through the whole track, Oscar taking notes in his head and explaining to Lando out loud what the bees were saying.
At the end, they bid them goodbye. The bees left with a last: “Good luck!”, leaving the two of them alone.
They returned to the hospitality. Settling together in the common room.
“Oscar?.”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you tell me about this? I mean wouldn’t it be better for you if you kept this secret for yourself?”
He had thought about the fact. It would have been a more tactical move to keep shut about this whole bee situation. To pocket the information he got and use it to his full advantage. Somehow that hadn’t felt completely right.
He didn’t think it was cheating necessarily. He was still driving, the car was perfect legal, and technically everyone else could come to the same conclusions of strategy that he was.
Who were to say the other drivers weren’t secretly seeking out fortune tellers in their spare time. Some superstitious rituals that people said athletes did had always seemed a bit unrealistic to him, but now…anything could be possible couldn’t it?
No, he hadn’t told anyone else, but there was more to it than feeling slightly bad for having a few extra helpers.
He trusted Lando.
He trusted Lando to believe him.
He trusted Lando to not tell anyone else.
And lastly, he trusted Lando to push him to his limit like nobody else could.
When Lando was in front, Oscar pushed to catch him. Daring to reach just a little further. To dare to grab after the red ripe apple dangling just out of reach. It gave him the wings to try and jump for it. And when Lando was behind, Oscar felt the rush of being chased. Knowing that Lando felt the exact same way.
“I don’t need a secret army of bees to beat you.”
Lando’s eye crinkled and a wide grin spread across his face. The sparkle in his eyes reflecting back in Oscars own.
“We’ll see about that.”
***
The next few Grand Prix weekends went by in a blur. They fell into the routine of walking the track together, once, twice in a weekend. Though qualifying were going well, both McLarens keeping a streak of Q3 appearances, Oscar had realized there were only so much to gain from simple sure strategies and track observations.
The bees were good at split second decisions he’d realized. They could rework strategies on the spot without any fancy analytic instruments, driven by their instincts and insight.
“How would you like to sit in a formula one car?” He’d asked one of them an ordinary day in the middle of July. It had enthusiastically agreed, and they had worked out a system.
It crawled around on the steering wheel, and onto his hands, tapping its antennas. Oscar had been scared it might fall of when he turned too fast, but the Bee was surprisingly resilient.
It had been overjoyed at the speed. Probably (definitely) breaking some sort of unofficial record for fastest bee in history.
After that, every time he was getting in the car, a few new bees made themselves comfortable in the nooks and crannies of the car.
***
He still walked the tracks with Lando. Every week like clockwork. Zak had noticed and suggested them using bikes to make it go faster. They had both declined.
Oscar had suggested doing an extra lap every week. To make sure they had noted everything of course…
Lando had agreed.
Oscar suggested they should meet more often to discuss strategies.
Lando had agreed.
“If you can really talk to bees, can you ask them why they keep coming for me?”
“Because you smell like flowers.” The words left Oscars mouth before he had time to process them. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Oh. Okay.” Lando’s face flushed red.
“That’s what the bees said!” Oscar hurriedly added, his own face suddenly feeling hotter than usual.
***
Oscar laid on the couch in the driver room with his head in Lando’s lap. His eyes closed and he lost himself in the felling of Lando playing with hair. Twisting the straight locks around his finger and watching them slip right off and back to their straight form.
When he was right at the edge of a light sleep, Lando spoke. Voice low and serious in a way it rarely was.
“You’re not gonna leave me for a bee, right?”
Oscar cracked open an eye. “What?”
“You know — like The Bee Movie.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
“Oh, it’s this movie where — ”
Oscar shouldn’t have asked.
***
"You bought me flowers?” Oscar asked bewildered as Lando held up a bouquet of orange roses.
“They’re not for you,” he said. “They’re for the bees.”
“Of course they are.”
***
Oscar laid in the shade of a big tree on a blanket of orange. Once in a while a leaf would let itself loose and twirl gracefully and around like a dancing ballerina before falling to the ground with the others. It was turning to autumn, and the winds blew colder.
The bees had started preparing for the winter, and more and more insects had already disappeared into shelters in the earth or hollow trees. Oscar had even noticed more whispers in the nook and crannies of the motor homes. He knew there was at least one spider currently hiding in his closet. He’d tried to tell it the motor home weren’t a good place to shack up during winter, considering it would be dismantled and moved within a week, but it had refused to listen to him.
“Mate, how are you still wearing shorts?” Lando rubbed his hands together before tucking them back into his jacket which he ad outside of his other jacket. Oscar hadn’t heard him approach, and sat up, watching as Lando made his way up the little mound.
“I thought Australians hated the cold,” He muttered and took a seat beside him. “It hurts just watching you.”
Oscar shrugged. “Maybe I gained some supernatural cold resistance.”
A gust of wind sent a shiver through the branches of the tree and a new wave of leafs rained down. Lando huddled closer, seeking warmth.
“Keep him warm, or he won’t last the winter.” A lonely bee clung to a flowering clover in front of them. Oscar ignored it.
“Anything can happen now,” Lando said into the air.
This last part of the year had turned into a mess. The McLarens were fighting Verstappen for pole almost every race, but both Ferrari and Mercedes were close behind in points. Now, when there were less than a handful of weekends left every point counted. They were fighting wheel to wheel with someone almost every race, even the qualifying rounds had ramped up in intensity, drivers pushing both their cars and each other to the limited.
A DNF now would mean loosing the championship.
Oscar should be scared, or angry whenever Lando had snuck his way past at the last second. The champion was showing everyone that his win had not been a fluke. Lando knew how to make it count. Yet…yet somehow Oscar couldn’t get himself to feel anything other than excitement. Yes he wanted to win, but there was nobody else he wanted to compete for the title with than the one currently trying to leech of his body heat.
Lando’s gloved pinky nudged against his.
“Anything can happen.” Oscar agreed, and took Lando’s hand in his.
***
Sweat was running down his forehead into his eyes. They were burning with exhaustion. He wasn’t sure when he had last blinked. The laps had been agonizingly long. The car fighting him every way.
He could feel the noise in his head. The bees sitting on the dashboard of his car trying to keep him focused. Grounded. He tried to listen, but his breath was heavy and ragged, and the world was screaming so loud he didn’t catch single word from the insects.
He yanked the steering wheel hard to the left into the corner. The wheels didn’t turn. He leaned harder. Feeling the carbon fiber groan. The vibrations resonating in his fingertips.
A loud noise blasted through the air. Something gave away and he pulled the car into the straight.
Oscar pushed the throttle flat out.
Nothing happened.
“Somethings wrong with the car!” Oscar called over the radio.
“Your throttle is not responding to input. The sensors aren’t picking up on a connection.”
Shit.
“You’re not loosing speed, but you’re not gaining anything…It looks to be a connection problem.” A pause. He was probably slamming his fist on the table. Oscar knew he would. The static crackled. “Fuck…Not even the engine or the battery…”
He heard it engraved in his engineers voice as he spoke. The telltale signs of heavy sighs and deep disappointment. The same ones that filled his side of the garage every Lando had sailed into a position in front of him.
“It was a good run Oscar.” The voice tried to reassure him, but Tom was unable to avoid sounding tired, deflated. “If you can make it to the next lap you’ll need to pit. We’ll retire the car.”
It can’t be over yet. Oscar thought. Not yet.
But it was. Oscar understood the implications. The issue was unfixable, unknown and unforeseen. Nothing anybody could do anything about.
Every time he breaks means lost speed. His points mean nothing. His position means nothing. This whole year fighting tooth and nail only for a repeat of almost.
The energy drained away from him the same way it slowly left the car. Through unfocused eyes he felt the hope slip away from between his fingers.
At least it wasn’t his driving. Such a small consolation. He wanted to scream.
The tingling in his brain was back. It was buzzing a soothing melody as if trying to soothe. He focused on it, letting it guide him through the haze. Least he could do was to keep the car on track in his last moments of defeat.
Movement stirred his attention. In the corner of his eye Oscar saw the couple of bees move in coordinated and precise lines, making their way down his race suit, crawling down his legs and disappearing out of sight.
He heard rustling and tapping. The bees droning away at a rapid pace out of sight.
“What are you doing?”
“Clutch now!” He heard a tiny voice yell.
Oscar obeyed. Body moved before brain. Hitting the button.
A slight tremble ran through the car. A new feeling subsumed his worries. A thundering cloud suddenly dissolving into rain, pouring down onto a dying man in the desert. The engine roared like a newly awakened lion.
“Thank you guys.” Oscar whispered, voice shaky.
An electrifying newfound energy ran through him as a harmony of small voices cheered him on.
It wasn’t over yet.
He saw movement in his mirrors and slammed down on the petal.
The car flew forwards.
***
Oscars couldn’t remember every smiling so wide in his entire life. When he stepped out of the car the world was spinning and filling with noise and motion that he couldn’t focus on. His whole body was floating, and shaking as if it had realized something his brain had yet to catch up on.
He doesn’t know what had happened on the rest of the grid. Only that the radio had crackled and Tom’s voice had told him that Lando had made contact with Max’s car.
“Are they ok?” Oscar had asked.
“Lando’s fine, but Oscar — If you don’t drop position you’ll finish first.”
“I’m P1?” He hadn’t believed it. He knew he had passed someone, the car feeling lighter and faster than ever.
A thought hit him. “What about Lando?” Lando could still catch up to him by points.
“He lost a few positions, and damaged the front wing. He’ll finish, but there’s little change he will catch up to the front runners. You keep Verstappen behind you and you’re champion.”
And everything after that was a blur. He felt the car resonate in his bones. The fuel in the tank pumping like the blood in his veins. Every turn and every straight becoming the path to his destiny. And then the view of a checkered flag and a last desperate push from a midnight blue car in his rear mirror.
“I don’t know what you did Oscar, but I’m not going to question a miracle!” Zak and the rest of his team had encompassed him as soon as he left the car. They had practically lifted him off the ground. The announcers were loud, the crowd was loud, but the bees whirled around them, weaving in and out of the chaos cheering for him.
“I told you 81 would win! I told you, what did I tell you — this!”
“I can die happy.”
“Someone hurry, tell the Queen!”
He stepped up to the podium for the last time this season.
He stepped up on the podium for the first time as world champion.
The interviews that followed were for the first time more than welcomed.
“How are you planning on celebrating your title?” A reported asked, holding the microphone up to him.
Oscars eyes found Lando’s eyes. Blinking up at him like jewels in the sea.
“Hopefully surrounded by flowers.”
🐝.ೃ࿔*:･🌻
The windows were opened. A light breeze ran through the curtains and made the sun rays dance in its shadow. Green leaves stretched towards the light, thin stems bending in the wind. Like small parachutes made of the local flora waiting for their time to get taken carried away. Colorful blossoms livened up every corner.
The flowers drank greedily as Oscar systematically watered them. Bees came buzzing in, one after another to get a taste of the indoor garden that had taken up most of the floor space in the bedroom.
“Do different flowers taste differently?” The voice came from the human shaped bundle of blankets sitting on the bed behind him.
“I don’t know. Never asked.” Oscar smiled and turned. Lando was stretching his long limbs in every direction, sitting up in the tangled white sheets. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, patting his curls into a presentable position.
“Mate, you need to step up your curiosity game. I have so many questions I could explode. And not the boring kind.”
“Then tell them to me and I’ll ask for you,” Oscar said, lending a helping finger to a bee that tried its best to pass right through the glass.
“It would be cooler if I could ask them myself.” Lando pouted, slipping out of the bed. When the last of the sheets hit the floor, Oscar quickly turned back to his flower suddenly pretending to be very interested in the little brown spot on the leaf.
“Get a wasp named after you and then we’ll talk.”
He studied the leafs on the lonely sunflower, the one that grew out from a little red pot and had somehow managed to reach average human height. Lando stepped up to him and wrapped his arms around his waist, leaning his head down onto Oscar’s bare back.
“That’s lame. I want a frog.” Lando mumbled into him. The warm breath was making his heart beat just a little faster.
“A frog?”
“Yeah. Frogs are cool.”
“Bees are cool too.”
A fuzzy little bee came up to them, swirling around their hair and decided to settle on Lando’s shoulder. Its antennas moved, scouting for the source of the nectar scent, puzzled when it didn’t find it. It was a small one, looked to be young, maybe newly grown.
“Oscar the bees are on me again.” Oscar chuckled and reached a finger behind brushing it up against Lando.
“Hey buddy, that’s not a flower.” The bee looked confused towards Oscar with big blank eyes.
“It’s not?”
Oscar shook his head.
It bowed its head in defeat and crawled onto his finger, and Oscar moved it onto one of his blooming violet lavender clusters were it eagerly took to the pollen, humming a low beautiful tune as it worked.
He felt soft lips press against his back.
“I’m proud of you.” Lando whispered.
Oscar smiled, pulled Lando into his arms and tumbled them both back onto the mattress and into the tower of pillows. The bees kept buzzing, turning their antennas in the other direction.
Lando’s championship trophy stood on the shelf just above the bed.
Oscar’s own stood just to the right of it, beaming golden in the sun.
🐝.ೃ࿔*:･🌻
The End