Goodbye, comforting lemonade. Here goes. I walk over to the bench, kneel down beside the girl. Swollen cheeks, teary eyes looking out of a sky blue hijab.

  “Are you alright?”

  “No! Of course not!”

  “Did something happen? Do you need any help?”

 A wail. 

  “We need lots of help!”

  “Who is ‘we'?"

  “Me and my sister!”

That doesn't sound good. Domestic violence?

  “Do you have trouble with your family?”

  “No! With the stupid lady who inherited our neighbour's house!” Okay... different story...?   “I want her to leave again!” Violent sobs.

  “Why, what is she doing?”

  “She is bad! She wants to kill the bees!”

  “The bees?”

  “The mining bees in the garden!”

  “Oh!” What are mining bees?

 More tears. I'll try something vague.

  “All of a sudden?”

  “Yes! Because she's just inherited the house! She's clueless and awful! An awful person!”

  “And the bees?”

  “The mining bees have been living in the garden for ever! When Mrs O'Shea was still alive, she always invited me and my sister over because we don't have a garden. We got biscuits and she'd show us all the holes in the earth where the bees lay their eggs!” Holes in the ground. Okay.

  “And the new lady probably wants a neat lawn.”

  Scream: “A LAWN! She only wants money! She wants to make everything around the house look neat so she can sell it for more expensive! She is so dumb! She doesn't even know who will buy it in the end! First she kills all the bees to make a lawn! Maybe the people who will end up buying the house won't want her stupid lawn! Maybe they would love the bees! If I had money I would NOT buy a house with a stupid disgusting dead LAWN!”

  “She probably thinks it looks better cared for with a clean lawn…” Hammers in my head. Why do people still think like that? Because assholes like me still keep repeating these kinds of pictures. Us media people — how we present ‘a cosy home’ on posters, in movies — we are the problem. We are brake pads on the wheel of time trying to roll towards a better future.

  “That doesn't matter! IT DOESN'T MATTER! IT TOTALLY DOESN'T MATTER what some stupid lady thinks looks good! The garden is where the bees live! It's their home! They don't even know that stupid lady inherited it! She only inherited it in her stupid human world! In the bees' world she didn't! In the bees' world no one owns the garden! It's just where their home is! The bees don't buy and sell places with contracts! Only humans make contracts! She only owns it in the human world! She can't just barge into the bees' world!” Wow. Truth. “She can't just barge into the bees' world and kill them! They don't do any harm at all!”

  “The bees don't have a chance to sign a contract.” I sound weak.

  “What are you two talking about?” A low voice behind me. The waitperson.

I turn. 

  “This girl was crying and there was no one around. I tried to console her a bit, but...  She told me she has troubles with her new neighbour.”

The waitperson sits down beside the child. 

  “I know the story a bit.”

  “Oh! You know each other?”

Both nod.

  “Samira comes here twice a week after school. I'm her music teacher.”

The child reaches for the waitperson's hand. 

  “Kim is also my friend. Not only my teacher. Kim, we need help with the bees!”

Kim! So you are called Kim.

  “It doesn't look to good for them, hm?” Such a warm voice.

Samira slowly shakes her heavy head.

  “My sister just sent me a message! She says she talked to the lady. She explained all about the bees to her. But it didn’t help!”

Kims hands close around Samira's.

  “That is one thing which is hard to understand. Sometimes we give people all the information they need so they can make good choices. And in the end they still don’t.”

  “Kim, can we make a petition? Like when we saved the arboretum from being turned into this minigolf course!”

We saved the arboretum. Minigolf course. Close call. Good to know. Good. Good to know.

  “I'm not sure this will work. It's much harder to keep people from doing something bad on their own private grounds. That the petition was successful has to do with that our arboretum is a public space. The council is responsible for managing the public spaces. A council is made of a whole group of people. When we managed to convince some of them, they could help us convince more people. And in the end it was enough people so the arboretum was saved. With this private lady it's different because she is the only one making all decisions. Either you manage to convince her, or there is not really much else you can do.”

  “That's awful! It's so unfair. I already said really often that the bees can't even buy the house. They are so dependent on that mean lady. That is so unfair. They were there first.” She is slowly running out of tears.

My knees. Ouch, ouch. I'll need to get up soon. Silence. Kim is thoughtful.

  “That's a thing with humans.” Sunny sparks in earthy brown curls. “Every one of them only lives for a couple of decades, and still so many of them entertain the illusion of owning something that's been around for billions of years: the land. It's of course absolutely ridiculous to think that a human could own land. It's what a little child would do: grab something and shout: ‘that's mine now!’. From the perspective of the land every little human, quote, unquote 'owner' just exists for a wink of an eye. Not very impressive. The problem is just that humans don't tend to see it that way. They tend to feel very important. Without consulting with any other beings, they divide the land amongst themselves, depending on who has the amount of money someone is asking for. It's all a bit silly, a bit like in a game: it all depends on that everyone plays along. That everyone believes in that money is worth something and that land is something you can sell and buy with it. This is all just stuff humans in the past somewhen agreed on. And now everyone finds it normal. And then they make decisions concerning the piece of land they feel they own. Decisions that affect everyone who lives on it. The bees and all the other insects. And the snails and slugs and rodents and birds and everyone. That's a problem. It's a sad and weird thing. But that's the way it is.”

Silence. My knees, ouch. Toes are falling asleep. Need to wiggle them. Okay, I really have to get up now. Standing beside the bench feels different. These few inches further away make a big difference. Have I stepped out of this? How welcome am I here? Those two know each other. I'm just barging in.