bee stings and band-aids: my first bee sting

Hands that smelled like metal. Like iron. Like gripping on to swing-sets. Legs that smelled like dirt, covered in a thin layer of clay. Arms with flakes of mulch. I was bathed in filth, innocent filth. The playground today wasn't a playground, it was space. It was Mars. The swing was my anti-gravity. Only today, I was gravity. I was heavy during the time after my hands smelled like swing sets, but before the dirt under my nails from digging for mars rocks. Here came the evil villain. A bee with a barbed wire stinger. This was the first. He was the first bee to sacrifice his life for me.
He flew onto Mars, despite the adverse atmosphere and he waded around my ankles. I moved too quickly from swing to mars rock adventure and he displayed his first and only line of defense. It tickled. His pollen dusted legs brushed my clayed legs, only he died and I didn't. But as I relished in the moment of my first bee sting, it began to sting. To bulge. To burn. It turned red, white hot in the center. A black prick sticking from the white lump.
She took it out for me. The stinger, she said. Before the stinger was gone there was baking soda and water. It was a thick paste, and felt cool on the burning suicide mark on my leg. That poor bee, he died for me. He was scared. Like I was scared. He had no business being on Mars. My imagined planet was no place for insects. The paste dried and flaked and picked it off. She gave me a fabric band-aid. Now, the smell of band-aids always reminds me of bee stings. She was more than a mother to me.