During one of my many trips to the Bay Area, my ex-girlfriend Isabel and me were invited to visit a common friend, Charles, a Californian artist living in Upper Lake. At the time, he and Isabel had also an artistic collaboration through a shared blog, but there also was the intention to set up a website to promote some of Charles' ceramic sculptures.
The last day of our 3-4 day staying in Upper Lake, it was decided to go to a nearby forest within a large private property who was belonging to one of Charles' friends, with the intention of shooting some nice pictures of Charles' artwork in a naturalistic environment.
Our host drove us there on his very old Ford truck. We arrived at the property gate around 3:30PM and Charles realized that his old key didn't work anymore, since the lock had been changed. Luckily, we didn't get stuck for long because another guy who was living on the property arrived and, despite looking a little suspicious about our intentions, opened up the gate for us. Once entered, we started climbing up on Charles' old Ford but we had to stop midway in order to add water in the cooling system of the engine since it was overheating. It took us about 25-30 minutes in total to reach the destination. We parked the car near a little house.
The environment was literally enchanted: a lovely pond on our left and big trees (red woods style) all around. One thing we noticed is how the whole ground was covered by leaves, basically everywhere. While Isabel and Charles walked 20-30 meters on my right looking for a good spot to take pictures to the few pieces of artwork we had carried with us, I sat down on a bench close to the car and started drinking some extremely sweet and unpleasant fruit juice.
After just a few minutes, I heard my gf screaming wildly and, when turning my head, I saw her moving around and waving her hands in a frenzy way. My first thought was that Charles had attacked her somehow... WTF? I don't know the guy so well after all... But then quickly realized that something else was going on since he started doing the same as well. I stood up and shouted "What happens Isa? What's wrong?" and I immediately felt a stingy pain in the middle of my belly. I looked down and I saw a hornet that was attached to my T-shirt and biting me... Holy fucking hell! I removed the bee and more came on their way.
Isabel had accidentally stepped on a hornets' nest and dozens of those came out and started attacking us. Charles yelled to us that we should all run to the pond and make our clothes wet so that the hornets could not get a grip. While Isabel and I did this, he remained 10-20 meters behind after having removed his shirt. His idea definitely worked for us, but then he asked how we were doing and whether we were allergic to bees. We both said that we were feeling ok so probably not. What about him? Well, he said he was not feeling very well and collapsed. We ran towards him, he could only stand up for a second and then was getting vertigo and falling on his knees. Fucking scary situation, let me tell...
We somehow reached the car and then he collapsed again on his back with his eyes wide open. We feared he was dead, but he immediately regained consciousness. I said that I could try to run down the forest and reach the house close to the gate but he said "There is no time". It was already 5PM and was getting scarily dark inside the forest. We had to use the car. He stood up with difficulty and dragged himself to the driving seat. We shouted that no way he could drive in those conditions. He agreed to just teach Isabel (who volunteered to drive and was the closest to the driving seat) how to drive his old car and then went lying on the open back of the truck. The scary descent began with a frightening narrow turn in which we almost rolled down the hill, since brakes were not working very well... It had been already difficult to climb up due to the narrow turns, but going down with such an old car and bad brakes was a totally different story, a true nightmarish situation like in the best horror/action movies.
During the ride, our friend in the back of the truck occasionally shouted to ask us to check the temperature indicator and sometimes passed out for a few seconds. While Isabel thought he was about to die, I tried to keep her focused on the driving. We finally reached the house and, luckily, the guy was there with his girlfriend. The latter offered to drive us to the nearest emergency hospital but she warned us that her driving style was a bit ... adventurous. I sat in the front and said "No problem, we all are scary drivers sometimes". Well, she was a REALLY scary one!! She literally drove like a F1 pilot, never slowing down at the numerous turns ... maybe she was a pilot, didn't have the courage to ask at the end, but I felt my guts in my throat a few times honestly... In the meantime Charles, who had got hornet bites a bit everywhere on his upper body (neck, chest, back, arms) suddenly got a strong skin reaction on his chest which turned all red.
Once we reached the hospital, Charles got a life-saving injection and the advice to keep a similar drug always with him, because another accident of this kind could have been lethal, as it had been for many in the past (serious allergic reactions can kill very sensitive subjects in the matter of seconds).
Happy ending? yes, but with a last minute "Twilight Zone" twist... Once we got back from this almost deadly adventure, I started cooking dinner for everybody. The original plan was to cook some Italian risotto with dried porcini mushrooms with ingredients I had brought from Belgium. In particular, I brought some Arborio white rice which I had already opened in Brussels but then sealed back with tape. I took a plate, removed the tape with scissors and started pouring rice on the plate and guess what? Among the rice, I suddenly noticed some dark little thing which turned out to be a ... freaking hornet!! Somehow, there was a dead hornet inside the completely sealed rice package. We all stared at each other speechless. Charles told us that the forest we had been to used to be a sacred place for native Americans. While rethinking about this strange event, I now believe that we might have been somehow punished for having violated a holy place by mother nature (or some Earthly spirit), who at the end wanted to also make sure we understood the lesson by giving us this final sign. Another option is some sort of karmic revenge from the dead hornet that was trapped into the rice package... Who knows? A weird synchronicity, in any case, which it is hard to attribute to mere coincidence.
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