I Set Out In Search of Burt of ‘Burt’s Bees.’ You Won’t Believe What Happens Next.
By: R.J. Kushner
Tags: Satire, Comedy, Short Story, Fiction, Humor

I was in line at the cinema to see Paddington 2 for the second time when the sandpaper-like skin on my left knuckle finally cracked into a new continent.

Being a Yellow Belt in taekwondo, I only let out one small, blood-curdling shriek at the sight of the blood gushing from my paw and, as is my custom, frantically rushed into the nearest women’s restroom in search of emergency ointment.

In my moment of need, however, I was greeted by a shoe to the noggin and a prompt “Get out, fiend!” My pleas for aid fell on deaf ears until I was finally met with a powerful security guard of the theater whose nametag said “Enrico.”

Enrico swooped me into his arms and carried me away to the slammer, which in this case came in the form of a small room in the side of the building where I was told by staff to “calm down.”

I said that I was perfectly calm, and they asked that if I was so calm then why was I weeping so much and I said my hand was rather dry.

Enrico, who hadn’t said much since setting me down like a lamb after a sheer, produced a small capsule and placed it in the only hand I had left that wasn’t maimed by a lack of moisture.

I studied the container’s image of a slightly bored, yet tender-looking bearded hipster, gave it a sniffy, and opened it, instinctively rubbing its contents on my injury.

Suddenly, as the goo hit my damaged epidermis, the clouds that had engulphed my life separated, and I was freer than I’d ever been before. I gasped for breath, and lost consciousness, waking up days later in field of corn, buck naked as a hound.

What was this mysterious ointment that was powerful enough to make me forget to mourn that I had missed another viewing of Paddington’s second adventure on the big screen? What was this ‘Burt’s Bees?’ As my wife’s Italian lover will attest, I’m not one to leave well enough alone.

My first question in my journey to get to the honeycombed-bottom of Burt’s Bees was simple enough: What are these “bees?” It turns out the answer to this is quite boring, though I discovered they are of “utmost importance” to the ecosystem, or something to that effect.

My next obvious ponderance was much more consuming: Who is this “Burt’s?” And what’s he up to with all this hand cream? And does the man own a shaver, for Christ sake? My hunt began.

I jumped on the ol’ blower and made it ring. I scrapped info from any man, woman or child who would divulge some, and pulled more strings than a puppeteer in an all-marionette performance of Chicago.

I had some breaks, and some setbacks, and then some more breaks, and after months of nervous break downs I finally found myself scouting the Appalachian mountain range, my only guide a one-legged sheep herder named Samuel and his goat, also, oddly, named Samuel (both, incidentally, refused to go by “Sammy”).

We suffered many a chilly night in the dark woods, huddling together at night for warmth, a lengthy side story I intend to take with me to the grave.

At last, grizzled and malnourished after a vast two days of hiking, we came upon the cave, the location of which I had pieced together from dozens of fragments of information from hundreds of sources.

The Samuels would go no further, and both wished me farewell and good luck and sped off faster than I’d ever seen them go during our trek (we’d agreed upon an hourly payment system).

A phlegmy cough from the cave kept me from brooding, however. Determined, I marched toward it with the courage of a thousand hens.

“Hello?” I whispered beneath my breath as I rounded the cave’s edge.

There, resting toward the back, was Burt. He did not seem surprised to see me, though I couldn’t say I felt the same way. Rather, I was somewhat in awe.

He looked exactly as he appears on the side of his hand salve, and I state that in the most literal sense possible, as he was just a head with a hat on. If he did have a body, it wasn’t with him at that particular moment.

“Surprised?” he said ironically after our eyes met in the dim light.

I muttered something in Swedish.

“I heard you were looking for me,” he continued, his lips barely visible beneath his bushy beard.

“I was,” I admitted, trying to compose myself. “But where’s the rest of you?”

“Alright, wise guy, congrats, you found me,” he drawled. “Now what do you want? Make like a bird and squawk so you can make like an omelet and beat it.”

I’d traveled thousands of miles, dialed thousands of numbers and submitted countless “Googles,” and here I was tongue-tied in front of a talking head.

“I must know,” I finally stammered. “What’s — what’s in your ointment?”

“Beeswax,” he said. “Anything else?”

“Well, not really — ”

“Good,” he said. There was a sudden buzz at the front of the cave, and I turned to see three tall Amazonians, each clad in attire almost as stunning as their figures, carrying bowls of luscious fruit. They greeted Burt with smiles and eyed me with side-glances of annoyance.

“Read the room, haircut,” Burt said as they crowded around him.

I left the cave, perhaps with more questions than when I had entered it; and as I slumped out, I looked up and saw darkness quickly descending on the mountains. Unthinking, I opened a the cap of my balm and gave my hands some prompt treatment.

That’s just life, isn’t it? I shrugged, and as I began my long and arduous hike back to my electric scooter at the foot of those mysterious hills, I wondered whether those crooks at the theater would give me grief about accepting my unused tickets for Paddington 2.