Flies

Since yesterday things have been odd. There was the sunset today. The sky looked like someone had thrown a ruffled velvet blanket over it, to soak up sangria the sun spilled. And work was weird. A lot of people weren't there. The food seemed more ambitious, too.

Someone was shot and killed a few blocks away. The buses weren't on time. The day felt alien. Even the sunset, as beautiful and unusual as it was, seemed to happen too early. I hadn't showered. I always shower before work. I could smell the oil in my hair when I took off my hat. The day evaporated before me with the quickness of isopropyl alcohol. Then, just now actually, there was the fruit fly.

I hate fruit flies; loathe them. They are a perfect nuisance. I once unleashed an unintentional genocide on them as I tried to vacuum hundreds out of my living room, back into the great outdoors. What I'd failed to consider, as I sucked them out of the room, was the motor inside the vacuum. When I opened the door to free them I discovered they'd all been instantly torn to pieces. My stomach turned. I realized I'd put them all into a blender; the painful irony being I'd deliberately vacuumed them up to avoid killing them. I felt so terrible I couldn't eat. Since then, I've grown accustomed to openly murdering the little suckers, on account of them being so profoundly annoying; flying into your eyes and mouth, your ears while you're sleeping, open wine glasses, and anywhere else you wouldn't want them.

Tonight though, I stumbled across one that had fallen into my beer. I thought I'd scoop him out with my finger and then quickly and mercifully kill him at the height of his drunkenness. But then I had a sudden change of heart. After all, he was no different than me. From my kitchen I extracted a fork and saved him from the brew. I left him aside to dry and told him everything would be okay, but warned him that should he reenter my beer I would have to take it upon myself to swallow him whole. I have yet to return to the drink to see if he's called my bluff.

I'll update tomorrow.