The Fly

The window called me again, but I ignored it and swatted at the fly tickling the hairs of my hand instead. Why? I asked myself. Well, because that’s what you did. How can I be expected to tolerate another creature freely roaming across my skin with no repercussions? Ridiculous. I missed it, knowing I would more or less. Yet, I still tried, that’s what was confusing. Flicking my fingers against my hand hard enough to leave a red spot- but no blood. Why did I not try harder? It's not like I've never killed one, I’ve probably killed more than most people. I’m quick to anger without a catalyst, and the incessant buzzing was often more than enough. I have been keeping track- well loose track at least. More than ten but less than twenty I would say. Just one of the many things I kept in the dark spots of my mind and never permitted sunlight.

Worthy opponents, somehow, with that truly impossible speed. When I was a boy, it was the gimmicky allure of a toy gun that pushed me to take their lives. Shooting a plastic disk, squashing the bug against whatever surface it skittered across. Then was the equally eccentric electric swatter, made to cook their blood-sucking cousins into cinders. I prefer a different way now, more refined, yet still primal. That warm drop of blood against my bare skin always left me foaming at the mouth for more. I would remain still, drifting a hand closer to the bug in increments even less than inches until I was hovering above the creature like an ominous cloud, inevitably raining death when the time was right. A fast enough twitch that not even a fly could register it at the distance.

Why was today any different? Was it simple laziness keeping me from performing my unbeatable technique? I flicked out another hasty swat after the first. I missed it again, of course. The little evade it did- floating off my hand and quickly re-landing on my knee- was taunting and irresistible. Or was it something else? After flying from hand to leg, it came to rest on the table and wandered toward me until it stopped at the corner of my desk. Odd, most left after one near-death experience, yet this one was trying out a third. And… looking at me? I bent down to its level and was sure. The fly was looking at me. Inquisitively as if asking why I tried to kill it.

My heart sank despite its connection to the brain I've come to know. It had landed on me in a friendly gesture I misunderstood as a violation. It must have felt betrayed. But why? We had just met and I'm human, it's what we do. I needed forgiveness desperately. I would have bowed down to the Diptera Insecta pleading for my absolution if it would understand. What would it understand? I laid my hand flat on my desk invitingly, the same hand it had thought was a place of safety. It was now, please believe me. It flew over my hand and returned to my knee. That was enough, I realized, it was slowly trusting me again. Maybe eventually we would go back to the way things were. I had felt better until I had to leave the office and lost sight of my new friend. He would be here tomorrow I told myself, gathering my things and flicking off my desk lamp.

The next morning my fears became my grim reality. He was nowhere. Yet everywhere I looked, I mistook specs of food and fabric for my unexpected ally. Rising hope in my chest squashed every time I got close enough to see the truth. Not in the restroom, not in the breakroom, not under the table, and certainly not on my hand where I wanted him. I sat back in my chair hopelessly, teary-eyed, on the brink of breaking down sobbing. That’s when the seventh-story window called to me again. For once, I listened.