Fly

Sometimes it gets lonely around the house. I have one pet. It's a fly. I named it Fly. It was very friendly and followed me everywhere inside the house, from room to room. Sometimes Fly would go zooming around my head like an airborne puppy, except much smaller than an actual puppy dog. Sometimes it would land on my shoulder and just watch the world go by as I walked. Sometimes it would sit beside my keyboard and watch me type as I wrote my blog.

I found out Fly was female when other flies identical to Fly began appearing. I was overwhelmed and resorted to breaking out the flyswatter. I hated to kill Fly's children but I had no choice. They were swarming around me wherever I went. Sometimes it was difficult to make a meal because flies would be buzzing around my hands and trying to land themselves on the pot or bowl I was using. But I'm not very good at swatting flies so I had an idea. I put a glue board on top of the kitchen stove. 

It was an ordinary, unscented glue board. I had doubts that it would collect flies. But collect flies is what it did. At one point I snapped a photo of the glue board so that I could count the flies on it. It had collected 65 flies. So I put a second glue board at the other end of the room and it began collecting flies. I was still swatting and killing a few flies, but the glue boards did the heavy lifting. They killed dozens of the annoying critters.

Then one night, about two nights ago, I was in the kitchen making dinner and a fly landed on the countertop. Without hesitating, I picked up the flyswatter and killed the critter. Then I took a closer look and realized that it was Fly. "Was" is the operative word here, because it was Fly no more. It was dead. I looked closer and saw what looked like a tiny note in one of its tiny paws. I got out my old 30-power Radio Shack microscope, switched on the built-in lamp, and looked closely at the note in Fly's dead paw. The note read, "You're my only friend. I love you."

That was so sad, it made me cry. At least I thought it did, until I realized my face was too close to the onion I was cutting up for my salad. I stepped back and wiped away a tear. Fly and I had good times together. We watched YouTube videos together, we watched the evening news together—we did everything together. But now Fly is gone and the house seems so much more empty and lonely without her.

I picked up Fly's tiny body and held it above the kitchen garbage can. "Alas poor Fly, I knew ye well. Have a good journey into Fly Afterlife." And I let her tiny body drop into the garbage can. I don't have a picture of Fly, but I still have the photo of her children. But who wants to look at a photo of 65 flies stuck to a glue board?

Sometimes I think I spend too much time alone.