The fly was in danger, and so was I

The front and back lawns looked neat and tidy again after my mowing and I was pleased with my results. My wife, neighbours, the birds infesting our trees and bushes, plus the dogs and cats owning various sites around the place would also be pleased. It had got me out of the house and into the fresh air, and I felt great. After a shower I felt better still and retreating to my favourite corner, stretched out on the old settee and opened the absorbing book I’d found in our town library.

I was about to turn a page when something caught my eye, yet a glance around the room revealed nothing. I resumed reading; then wouldn’t it rock you, two lines later it happened again. One of those small house flies nature brought into existence for no other reason than to be a pest was cruising the room, as it hovered, zoomed and buzzed nonchalantly around me. I tried to keep cool, remembering the cocktail of pills I’d taken half an hour before breakfast to control my blood pressure; it hadn’t included a pill to cover moments such as this. That bloody fly was in danger, and so was I.

I’m normally a quiet, inoffensive chap; not one to look for trouble or blow my stack. I’ll stand up for myself, that sort of thing but I turn the other cheek when I need to. Yet trouble will find me. At school, teachers listed my inability to listen, learn or be quiet. At work, foremen have entirely misunderstood my efforts to do as instructed. I’ve had British army sergeants livid in the face, stand up close and tell me things about myself and my ancestry I’d never known; and civil servants have lost all semblance of civility on listening to my simple requests for information. In all those situations I can say with my hand across my fibrillating dicky heart, I’ve kept my cool.

Now common knowledge tells me it’s us quiet ones who need to watch it. I confess that on that day I did not: ‘YOU LITTLE SOD!’ I bellowed, causing a flock of birds to rise in wild flight from the Japanese walnut tree in our back garden. But you can understand; I was terribly, terribly upset at having my enjoyment curtailed. Bounding up from my recumbent position I lashed out furiously, performing a pretty good imitation of a whirling Dervish, intent on impressing his lady friends as they watched him. I paused; either I’d hit it for six, or it had taken the hint and buzzed off. They can be cunning little bastards, can’t they? So I waited.

Apart from a few pretty coloured spots before my eyes nothing happened. No swoops, no buzzes, no fly. I breathed a slow relaxing breath; the hammering in my chest subsided and I returned to my reading.

***

I’ve been home for just over a week now after my trip to the hospital to check out my fluttering heart. The fly may return, so may my angina. I haven’t bothered to read anything yet; I carry a rolled up newspaper instead, to thwack against my leg as I practice breathing slowly. As I do this, I walk around spraying anything in the house that dares to move a leg, wing or belly. Some people are against genetic engineering, but if I had my way I’d rearrange the house fly’s lifting gear. It should be possible; we have the technology. Fix it to stall after a sudden draft of air from anything swung at it by a human. Failing that, I could have myself genetically fixed in some way … A suitable point for me to buzz off, don’t you think?

Dennis Crompton © 1997
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)