the fly

A few nights ago I was sleeping soundly in bed, warm and happy.  I was dreaming that I was hiking through the forest, on a trek to some unknown land.  Trees loomed overhead and a cool breeze ruffled my hair.  But where was my camera?  I wanted to take pictures.

Suddenly there was the loud buzzing of an insect near my ear.  I looked around to swat it away, but didn't see anything.  The incessant buzzing continued.  Everything around me began to go dark as I felt myself slipping from the forest back to soft pillows and sheets.  Why was I waking up?  I was having such a lovely dream.  I wanted to return to that sweet place!  I wanted to find out where we were going.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzz-zzzzzzz.

The buzzing had not been a part of my dream - it was in my bedroom.  Some stupid fly with nothing better to do than wake me up from golden dreams about distant realms.  With a groan, I swatted at the noise.  I heard the little insect's wings as he did figure eights around my ear.  I swatted at him again, barely catching myself from slapping my own face.  Unperturbed, the fly continued doing laps around my head like he was training for the olympics.

"What the hell!?  You have the whole room to fly around in.  You could go chill out in some corner and wait for morning to come.  Go have a dream about being something more interesting than a fly.  Leave me alone why don't you?"

Apparently flies don't speak english, or at least this one didn't.  I pulled my pillow over my head and my covers up to my chin.  Ahh, that's better.

Silence.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-bzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzz!

I sprung from my bed with a newfound energy born of murderous intentions, waving my hands severely at the dark in hope of them connecting with something small and evil, but my blind attempts had no effect on the buzzing.  I switched on the bedside lamp and squinted, trying to discern my enemy from the bright fuzzy blobs of the room.  I couldn't see a damn thing.

Hastily, I snatched my glasses from the table and stood at the ready.  Where was my attacker!?  But I didn't see or hear anything.  In the presence of light, this fierce antagonist had become a skulking coward.

"Where are you, stupid fly?  Come out, come out so I can kill you!"

The fly must speak english after all, because he stayed resolutely hidden.  Tim, however, rolled over in bed and groaned at me, "why did you turn the light on?"

"There's a FLY in this room and he won't stop BUZZING around my HEAD!"

"Turn off the light."

"Not until I find him and kill him!"

"Tien, turn off the light and come back to sleep."

"But..."

"I don't hear a fly.  He's gone.  Now turn off the light please.  Come back to sleep."

I felt bad for waking him, too, so I returned my glasses to their place, switched off the light, and crawled back into bed.  He was right, it was silent.  Thank goodness.  Maybe the fly had decided to go to bed, too.  I sank into the mattress, feeling the warmth of sleep starting to slide back over my body and pull me back into that blissful dream-state where all things become possible.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

"GOD DAMMIT!"

"Tien, it's just a fly."

"No!  He has an evil plot against me.  I can't sleep with all of this buzzing!"

"Turn on the fan.  It'll make it harder for him to fly."

Was that true?  Would it really?  Trust Tim to be rational and reasonable in the middle of the night.  Being woken up didn't seem to turn him into the raging lunatic it transformed me into.  It certainly was worth trying.

I climbed out of bed and turned on the ceiling fan.  I lay in bed for the next five minutes, waiting for the fly to return, but he didn't.  Success!  Thank you Tim, I thought.

Unfortunately, the longer I laid there I felt a chill creep over me.  The joy of living in Hawaii is that you need very little bedding to keep you warm at night.  In fact, half the time I find myself kicking the sheets off in the night to keep cool.  However, with the ceiling fan spinning overhead at warp speeds, protecting me from invisible enemies, I found myself absolutely freezing.  I would never get back to sleep in a room this cold.  The fly was long gone.

I got up, turned the fan back off, and relished the warmth of the bed.  The room stayed silent around me, and I was grateful.  Soon I was drifting back off to sleep, feeling silly that I'd ever gotten so upset about a tiny little fly...

Bzzzzz.

No!  I wouldn't let him bother me.  I would just go to sleep, and he would eventually leave me alone.  I scrunched way down under the sheets, completely covering my head with them and using my pillow as a shield.  It successfully muffled the buzzing and after a while I fell into a fitful, restless sleep.

***

The next morning, I looked for the fly and could not find him.  Thank god.  I left the bedroom door open all day, hoping he would escape to the downstairs and eventually make his way back outside.  I didn't see the fly anywhere, so I figured he must be gone.

When night came, Tim and I got ready for bed and closed the bedroom door behind us.  I stood in the bathroom brushing my teeth, when I heard a low, wicked sound:

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I turned to look, and there he was: the fly.

"Y-gg-OU!"

I looked around frantically for something to kill the fly with, my toothbrush dangling from my mouth forgotten, toothpaste slowly dripping down my chin.  "Iii-gghhhfffaggkttt-ittt!!!!"

"What?"  Tim called from the bedroom.

Fuck.

I spit the toothbrush and toothpaste out of my mouth and called, "I found it!  The fly!  We have to KILL IT before we go to bed!!!"

Being the caring boyfriend that he is, he joined me in the bathroom as I attempted to swat a the fly with a container of shaving cream.  Entirely ineffective.  Why don't we have a fly swatter!?  Ah.  I scampered into the closet and returned with a shoe.

By now, the fly had buzzed back into the bedroom.  I chased him around the bed and he flew circles around me, laughing in merriment, taunting me.  I chased him back into the bathroom.

Tim closed the door to the closet as well as the bedroom, cleverly locking him in with us.  That was smart.  Why didn't I think of that?  What a wonderful boyfriend he is, I thought, eyes glued to the tiny zipping target.

The next five minutes were spent attempting to flatten the beast, I with my shoe and Tim with a manila folder.  He never stayed still long enough for us to overtake him, and the harder it became the more determined I was to annihilate this motherfuckerrrrr!

The fly paused on the edge of the tub, laughing at how silly we looked and all of the sudden an intense burst of energy surged through my body.  I was a 12-year-old boy at the nickel arcade on a mission to win win win and the entire bathroom had become a giant whack-a-mole.  With an amazonian war-cry I began feverishly hammering at the fly over and over again with my shoe, wham, wham, wham, wham, WHAM, wham, wham, WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM!

The fly leapt from spot to spot, caught off-guard by my new lightening speed.  Tim retreated to the corner, fear in his eyes.  His girlfriend had disappeared and was replaced by a psychotic killer.  I think he was grateful right then that he wasn't a fly.  I was going to kill that fly, godammit, wham, if it was the last, wham, thing I, wham, DO!  WHAM!

I nicked the edge of the fly's wing and his flying became erratic and slow.  Hah.  I knew I had him now. There was nothing he could do.

I'm sure in that moment my eyes had turned to flaming red slits and steam was escaping via ear canal.  A twisted, cheshire-grinch-grin curled my lips as I lifted the shoe a final time.  The fly landed on the shower door.

Bzzz.  It said, halfheartedly.

WHAM!  I smashed the fly dead-on and the wobble-wobble-wobble of the shower door reverberated as I stood triumphantly over the innards of my foe.  He would NEVER wake me from my slumber EVER again!  Muahahahahaha!

I turned to Tim with a loud cheer and went to give him a high five.  He looked at me, terrified.

"Jesus, you almost shattered the shower door."

"That's what he GETS!"

"Remind me never to make you mad."

Fortunately, Tim has a sense of humor and he laughed with me, and high-fived me as I strutted around the bathroom, on top of the world.  Or maybe he was just scared to do anything but humor my neurotic behavior.

I did it!  I killed the fly!  I am the CHAMPION FLY-KILLER, for ever and ever!  Nothing can mess with me!  I will take you ON!  Just call me Tien the Conquerer!  Heh, heh, heh.

I smiled down at fly-guts on glass, and felt a twinge of guilt.  The poor thing.  He was just a fly.  He had a life to live, even if it was a short one, and I had just ended it suddenly because I was annoyed by him.  How could I?

Then I told myself reasonably that he knew what he was doing, he was not innocent at all he was tormenting me, and besides, being dead is pretty awesome.  Nothing really ever dies, anyway, they just go to a better place. Now he was free to come back as a caterpillar or a bee or a worm.  Being a fly probably sucked anyway.  I instantly felt better.

I went to sleep that night feeling pretty proud of myself; I had triumphed, and that fly would never buzz around my head at night again.  I snuggled deeper into the sheets, feeling intensely safe, savoring the quiet.  And yes, I was feeling pretty cocky, too.

"What's that I hear?  Hmm?  Is that the sound of SILENCE?  How nice.  No bzz-bzz-bzz tonight, just quiet.  That's because I am the conquerer!"  I said out loud.

The room was still around me.  Tim had already slipped off into dreams and I was savoring the darkness.  With a smile on my face, I began to drift off.  Suddenly...

Bzzzzzzzzz.

No!  It couldn't be!  Had my attacker returned from the dead?  I had killed him!  What was going on!?

I switched on the light.

It was a motherfucking mosquito.