I couldn’t have been more than eight as I sat on the edge of my bed that cold fall evening. Though the windows hadn’t been opened for a good month, a fly had somehow found its way into the house, its confusing journey leading it to my window sill. I had been playing with a small figurine of a young girl dressed in yellow, with her flowing plastic skirts containing a hollow space beneath them. No feet though.
Before I had noted the presence of the fly I had been absent mindedly walking the doll up and down the length of the window sill on its imaginary feet. Up and down, back and forth. I noticed the fly on the fifth loop.
Its transparent little wings were sleepy with cold, making it bump into things and follow and erratic pattern of flight, almost as if it was drunk. As I watched the tiny insect struggle I developed an unexplainable disgust for it. For its tiny black eyes and its hair-like legs. For its sputtering wings and its utter helplessness.
I moved in on it slowly, and in its confusion it made no effort to escape. I was close enough to it that I could see my breath softly blowing it across the surface of the window sill. I waited.
And then with a quick movement of my hand I snapped the figurine’s hollow skirts over the fly, trapping it beneath. Minutes past before I slowly lifted the edge of the figurine again. The fly didn’t move much, a few twitches of its small wings, and I enclosed the fly in its plastic tomb. The figurine smiled back at me.
Two days later I released the body of the fly into the trashcan next to my bed.
