LSWC: A Discussion About Flies (Part One)

Explanatory Notes

While I do not claim to be a very good writer, hopefully I have learned something about how to be (or preferably not be) a truly bad one. This story, then, has been written with great care; a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth has gone into making it as awful as possible. There are few fundamental clangers from the lexicon of poor writing that are absent, so I sincerely hope this humble offering sets your teeth on edge in the reading at least as much as it did mine in the writing. However, nothing is perfect or even perfectly awful so any suggestions to make it even more excruciating are most welcome so please feel free to post them as editorial notes.

Where “it” is used in the possessive case and is incorrectly written as “it’s”, please mentally correct it to “its”. The various other errors in the use of apostrophes, hyphens, commas and so forth may be dealt with in the same manner.

Okay, I guess that’ll do.

Thank you.

Mike.

A DISCUSSION ABOUT FLIES

Kathy and Martin sat side by side on the wooden bench in the back garden of her grandparent’s cottage -- the still living ones. The late spring sunshine was warm on their backs, the pleasant breeze blowing in over their right shoulders* playfully tousled their hair. (Note: Readers may fill in other minor details from their own memories of late spring days in gardens with warm sunshine and pleasant breezes gently tousling their hair [if any], both from any direction. If any readers only have memories of cold spring sunshine and unpleasant breezes tousling their hair or numbing their skull where their hair once was from any direction, please try and imagine their opposites.)

* One each, just to be clear.

Martin observed a large, very healthy-looking fly that would settle on a flower for a few moments, turn and regard the couple as if with thoughts of tasty snacks on it’s mind, then taking off and flying around seemingly aimlessly it would settle on another flower and again turn to regard them from its vantage point a couple of feet away from their feet on the other side of the narrow stone-flagged pathway from where they sat with their feet just resting on its edge. Of the path.

“Look,” he commented, pointing at the fly. “That fly seems to be regarding us as if it has thoughts of future tasty snacks on it’s mind.”

Kathy had been trying with no success whatsoever to fashion a cute little garland of twisted daisies like the sweet, perfectly-coiffed long-flaxen-haired** and richly-embroidered pinafored girls in the fairytale books always did as if born to the art, but the whole thing kept coming to pieces, spastically unwinding in her hands like a gorgon’s decorative headpiece. Thinking herself to be quite ambidextrous (even with both her left and right hands), she felt increasingly frustrated to be being defeated by a few flowers and considered that she either needed a couple of extra hands or some wild daisy glue or at least a few forceps*** to get the job done and having neither of the three, she gave up and flinging her Daliesque creation into the nearby bushes she turned her attention to the fly.

** Kathy’s hair is quite long but she’s a brunette.
*** Kathy was a final-year medical student.

“Actually I think she’s watching you,” Kathy responded. “She doesn’t seem interested in me at all. She has eyes -- huge multi-faceted ones at that -- only for you.”

“She?” Martin asked puzzledly.

“Yes, of course she. Look at her, that lovely bulging abdomen full of young waiting to be born. The males are all skinny weedy little things. She’s three times their size. Of course she’s a she,” she concluded with nothing more to say about it.

“Oh great,” he replied ironically, not meaning that it really was great. Actually he wasn’t happy about it at all.

Martin picked up a pebble and threw it at the fly but doing much better than Goliath (but then he was somewhat bigger) did she didn’t get hit by it on her forehead but instead dodged the missile with swift-winged insectile ease and settled down on the same flower, rubbing her hands or whatever they were together and, as some people and flies do she quaintly tilted her little head questioningly to one side as if saying, “Why in the hell did you do that, you enormous great hulking idiot?”

Martin sighed dejectedly, “There’s a nice thumbnail sketch of my life. A huge fat fly has fallen in love with me.”

Kathy smirked, “A huge pregnant fly, at that.”

Kathy liked to use “at that”. She picked it up from her mother, who also used it. Martin was aware of this, so although it irritated him that she used “at that” a little too often, he didn’t go on about it. Well, not very often. Just the other day he’d overheard a conversation with Kathy’s mother when she called Kathy to ask her (ie Kathy) if she would be coming to her cousin Beatrice’s twenty-first birthday party. Kathy couldn’t stand Beatrice and never had stood her but a twenty-first was a twenty-first and she was her first first cousin, so although at first she was reluctant she gave in eventually.

“Mom, you know I can’t stand Beatrice,” Kathy said to her mother.

“Oh I know, and she can’t stand you either,” Katy’s mother replied to her. “But she’s your cousin and it’s her twenty-first and it’ll look bad if you don’t go.”

Kathy’s mother had what could be called a penetrating voice and probably didn’t really need to use a phone as much as she did. Martin had no trouble hearing her even though he was ten feet away from the phone that Kathy was using to talk to her watching a football game on TV. As for Kathy, she had when talking to her mother on the phone and especially if she had a headache like she did now adopted the technique of moving the handset away from her ear and only bringing it closer to speak.

She brought the handset closer to speak and replied, “Couldn’t I plead illness or something?” then quickly moved the handset away again.

“I suppose you could at that -- but no your Aunt Myrtle would send an ambulance for you I’d expect. She always likes having her own way,” her Mom sighed.

“She does, at that,” Kathy sighed and (as noted above) gave in. “Okay, I’ll go. I’ll even wear a pretty dress a couple of decades out of date, just to make Aunt Myrtle happy. I’ve got something stowed that the previous owner left when she finally died up in the attic.”

“That’s a good idea, at that,” her Mom laughed. “Would you happen to have something equally outdated, that I could wear up in the attic?”

“I might have, at that,” Kathy laughed. “Oh BTW Mom where’s the party?”

“It’s @ The Creepy Vine, you know it, it’s my neighbour’s daughter’s boyfriends’ father’s restaurant.”

“Oh, yeah, The Creepy Vine -- your neighbour’s daughters’ boyfriend’s fathers’ place. Oh, yeah I know it, I remember we went there once for the twin’s birthday.” Then thinking about the twin’s she asked, “How are they?”

“Sandy’s doing fine, she’s starting college soon. And Mandy’s pregnancies coming along nicely.”

“Oh that’s good. You know I might enjoy the party as they’ll be there, at that…”

You can understand why Martin tried to avoid any occasions when Kathy, and her Mom ,were together in the same room.

(Note: For more information about how people inherit speech characteristics from their significant others, refer to the JIDSTUK [Journal for the Intense and Detailed Study of Totally Useless Knowledge [Using Grant Money Unknowingly Supplied by Hapless Taxpayers]], vol. 6, pp 29 -- 33.)

“A very pregnant fly,” Kathy emphasized, trying to recall specific details of the egg-laying preferences of various types of flies but being unable to, which was unfortunate indeed for Martin because she remembered them just as they were having dinner that evening and so of course told him. Kathy was a bit surprised at his reaction but at least it gave her a really excellent opportunity to practice treating a patient with extremely violent ejectile vomiting, so there was a bright side to it, at that.

(Part Two)

All that still lay in the future however and Martin just watched the fly and asked, “Why is she rubbing her hands or whatever they are together like that?”

“They all do,” his partner informed him, who having in a doctor’s waiting room one day read the JIDSTUK’s special issue (vol. 24), which was devoted soully to studies of flies and their unique sets of behaviour characteristics cover to cover and had nightmares about it for days afterwards, knew all about it. (Note: Well, nights afterwards in fact but try saying “for nights afterwards” and see how it sounds, this is why we say days even when it’s really nights.)

Martin sighed, “I know they all do -- but why?”

“It’s O.C.D. Well, an O.C.D. to be more accurate,” she replied, correcting herself.

“An O.C.D.?” Martin asked.

“Uh-huh.” Kathy plucked a few more daisies then realizing she was tormenting herself for no good reason she wrung her hands together then tossed them over her shoulder with a sigh. There is something rather satisfying about tossing things over your shoulder with a sigh like people do with things in the movies especially comedies as if signifying complete and udder resignation. If you’ve never tried it then please do. A book, your Blackberry or laptop, an anvil that was under your thumb when you hit it with a hammer, your deepfreeze that breaks down the day after you leave for a fortnight’s summer vacation, completely full of Frozen TV dinners and ice cream, whatever is causing you needless grief, toss it over your shoulder with a sigh and you’ll appreciate the benefits. So, having tossed them sighing over her shoulder, Kathy, turning to Martin, explained, “An Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In capitals.”

Martin shook his head, because he was puzzled or (at least) disbelieving (at most) and not actually flat-out disagreeing with Kathy, who was, after all, a medical student in her final year and very clever and in fact had a better knowledge of him than he did -- at least from the point of view of what he would look like if dissected. It stood to no reason at all therefore that she should know all about the behaviour of flies but he’d had several glasses of red wine at lunch just a little while ago so it was kind of standing to reason with him, but even so his mind demanded a token defense so that’s why he shook his head and responded, “You are seriously telling me that flies have an O.C.D.?”

“Well of course they do.” Recalling what she had read that morning and half the afternoon of the day she waited in the waiting room, she quoted almost verbatim an edited version of several pages of text from her memory: “Detailed studies have shown that there is no good, earthly reason why flies rub their little hand-thingies together so it must be behavioural, and as it’s kind of compulsive then of course it’s an O.C.D.” She began to reach for another daisy and frowned, the thought coming to her (which is what most thoughts do -- they come to you) that that that she was doing was awfully close to an O.C.D.

Kathy compulsively worried about any behaviour things she had that might be signs that she had an O.C.D.

“God…what on earth would cause it?” Martin leaned forward to study the fly more closely, trying to determine if it’s expression showed it was displaying symptoms of psychological distress or if it was neurotic or stuff like that. He was an auditor with the Inland Revenue (ie the Taxation Dept if you are not American) and so he was very good at picking up signs of distress from expressions though not often from flies, as many of his “clients” seemed distressed just when he was visiting them for some reason.

“They have a complex.” Kathy began to reach for some daisies again and quickly drew her hands back in her lap and clenched her fists as if they’d bitten her. “Think about it. All their lives they hear how filthy they are, how they eat garbage and carry disease, even the millions and zillions of flies that never set eyes on garbage and haven’t carried a day’s deadly disease in there lifes, they all get kind of tarred with the same brush and so they get this complex and spend half their waking hours washing their poor little hand thingies,” she finished, with a concluding shrug.

“Wow…I never would’ve believed it,” Martin murmured after a moment’s silence while he thought about it.

“Hee hee hee,” Kathy laughed, because it was quite funny really. “I guess it sounds kind of hard to believe.”

“Yeah…Ha ha ha!” Martin laughed in reply. “It kind of does.”

“Ha hee ha hee ha hee ha hee ha!” they laughed together.

They looked at each other and burst out laughing again.

“Ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!”

“Hee hee hee heeee!”

Oh, how they laughed! It was sooo funny!

“Ha ha ha ha haaaaa! That is sooo funny!” Martin commented laughingly, getting up from the path where he had been rolling around laughing and sitting down next to Kathy who hadn’t but had managed to stay seated and not roll aound (she just lay back on the seat and kicked her feet in the air a bit), once again.

The fly, which had been flying around in a holding pattern while Martin steamrollered the daisies as he rolled around laughing now came flying down once again and made a perfect three-point landing on it’s six legs on a still-standing flower once again.

“Amazing things, flies,” Martin remarked, nodding in the direction of the fly.

“Yes, complexes or not,” Kathy agreed, looking at the fly Martin was nodding at, “Quite amazing.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. There was a moment’s silence when neither of them spoke then after a short pause he asked, “Have you ever seen a fly aeroplane?”

Kathy’s expression was puzzled and she showed it. “A flying aeroplane? Of course I have.”

“Not a flying aeroplane,” Martin corrected her. “A fly aeroplane,” he went on, emphasizing “fly” so that she knew what the correction was.

“You mean an -- an aeroplane for flies?” she asked him, her expression still puzzled because she still was.

“No,” Martin answered shaking his head negatively in disagreement. “It’s not quite for flies, it’s fly powered,” he elaborated by way of explanation.

“Fly powered?” Kathy frowned, picking up exactly on his meaning but still a bit lost. “How does a fly power an aeroplane?” she asked.

“I saw it on the Web somewhere…Let me explain,” Martin began explaining, making motions with his hands so Kathy would get the picture better. “You have this tiny little model aeroplane made of little pieces of balsa wood or paper like this, just like a little plane but a very small one.”

“A tiny little aeroplane. Uh-huh,” Kathy replied, not really believing him, as you could tell from the tone of her voice, which was disbelieving. A kind of low, flat tone. Like that.

“Yeah, a tiny little aeroplane,” Martin confirmed, nodding. “But a very small one. Then you get four flies, nice big healthy ones like that one there -- and oh yeah they have to be alive, too -- and you use a tiny little drop of glue for each one and you stick them on the wings where the engines go on real planes except they go on top not underneath and then you let it go and they all fly and it flies around like a little four-engined bomber.”

“You cannot be serious,” Kathy responded, not believing him but because it sounded kind of funny trying not to laugh and succeeding pretty good. She smiled though, kind of downwards.

Martin was miffed. “I am as serious as you are,” he answered miffedly. “I saw the design and it made an inedible impression on me and I’ve never forgotten it. They even had one for eight flies where you stick them in four pairs like those big eight-engined military bombers have.”

“Really? Eight? In pairs? But -- but what do they carry?”

“Oh, all sorts of stuff,” Martin shrugged. “Even nukes.”

“Nukes?” Kathy asked, amazed. “Like, nuclear bomb-type nukes?” Her eyes widened and her mouth hung open in stunned silent amazement except for when she said something.

“Sure, like that big eight-engined bomber a while back that flew by mistake right down across the country with live nukes under it’s wings. You remember?”

(Third and Final Part)

Annoyed, Kathy rolled her eyes in his direction. “I don’t mean the real bombers, I mean the fly aeroplane bomber thingies!”

“Oh, right.” Martin thought a moment and said, “Gee, I hadn’t really thought about what they’d carry, fly aeroplanes.”

Kathy looked at him silently and said nothing.

The silence became as pregnant as the fly, until finally Martin said, “Well, if the flies were powerful enough a fly aeroplane could carry a couple of small bugs as passengers, I guess, but I guess the military could figure a way to make them into mini spy planes with teeny little cameras or something if the flies were well trained.”

Kathy grinned. “When it comes to the minds of the military high-ups anything is possible, but anyway it’s a novel mode of transport for bugs I guess.” Standing and smoothing her skirt she glanced downwards and saw the fly was running on it’s legs and making a beeline for her feet. Kathy glanced upwards (ie heavenwards) and murmured, “Lord, forgive me,” then stepped on the fly, which had paused for a moment to rub its little hand thingies together while it looked at her, glad that she was wearing sandals and not only bare feet.

“Why’d you do that?” asked Martin, puzzled.

“Because flies are filthy things that feed on garbage and spread disease,” Kathy answered. She turned and began strolling up the path towards the cottage then pausing and turning to address Martin again she smirked and concluded, “Everyone knows that.”

(Konec)

Mike, Iam smiling here, at how you created both simplicity, and complexity, out of something like sitting outside on a spring day.
I won't ever look at a fly the same way again.
Your story makes me want to sit outside and just enjoy the day.
I loved it.

Hi AD,

thank you for the comments! It's great to have some feedback and I really appreciate it. It also feels good to know that it gave you something to smile about.

I know what you mean about flies. Just try not to think too much about why they are rubbing their little hand-thingies together. I did and that's where the story came from. In other words, I was inspired by a fly. A Slovak fly (at that ), if flies can be assigned nationalities.

reply to post by JustMike


Trust me Mike, I have had those thoughts about flies. Especially when they land near a plate of food I'm eating. They just look up at you and rub those little hand thingies. MOST DISTURBING.
I have never looked at a fly the same way since seeing the movie "THE FLY".