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n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

“A research technician is required to work at the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects assisting Professor Francis Ratnieks on research projects on honey bees, stingless bees, and ants. Previous experience of working with these types of social insects, in carrying out lab and field research, and a basic ability in speaking Portuguese, are required.”

I never knew honey bees speak Portuguese.

Nor flying ants or any other social insects, though actually it would make sense, these creatures fly far and wide and who’s to say they’ve not visited the continent and picked up some of the local lingo, some of the local colour, so to speak, and if they’ve, for example, been to Lisbon, who’s to say they didn’t fall in love with the city and join a local hive - I don’t know how these things work in the world of bees, hell I don’t even know how these things work in the world of humans, am I right, well anyway - so like I was saying they might move in with the local bees, say hola and cómo estás and gracias and te quiero - but in Portuguese, they would speak Portuguese, I only know Spanish so I wrote some Spanish there, the important phrases right - they might stay a while, hang up their tiny little hats and stay and fall in love with the local cuisine and the music and have little Portuguese grubs, and then come back home only after long months have passed - months are like years for bees I do know that much - and it’ll have been so long they’ll have forgotten their native language, their native tongue, so to speak - bees have very long tongues you know - their English words have flown, have gone, adiós, adiós las palabras - like I said I only speak Spanish so that’ll have to do - and then, when they’ve come home and got comfy in the English hives of the university where they can be cared for and studied and have tiny numbers painted on their furry backs - special paint must be used, I guess, but how do they catch the bees, how do they hold them still - then of course someone has to speak their language, no one can talk to them or understand them unless they speak with the soft, rushing sounds of Portuguese and sing to them the passionate and mournful fados of Lisbon - OK maybe I do know something about Portugal, at least I know of their sad, desperate love songs, I’d like to know their happy songs, you know, their songs of joy, I’ve had enough of the sad songs now - and so they put an advertisement on their website for a researcher who knows about insects that are social and know only how to speak to each other by dancing in circles and singing the Portuguese Fado.

Maybe the job description should have included an intimate knowledge of Portuguese music and broken hearts as well. But what do I know?