I was seated at the dining table in my home pursuing the innocent occupation of reading and minding my own business. The weather was agreeable: the sun shone warmly, but did not jar the eyes; my windows were open, and the sweet summer air was a welcome guest of the season.

The newspaper, which served as my reading material, told of car sales and other miscellaneous announcements, as well as some tragedies I ignored. I was glossing through the empty investment section, when the middle of a word I was trying to interpret became obstructed by the black rotundity of a particularly gross common housefly. I ejected the insect with fervour enough to gift it flight, had it not already been so endowed, and returned to reading the unveiled phrase. The word was ‘equity,’ as I should have been able to discern from the context. 

The fly returned with revitalised curiosity when I reached the motherhood column. I was just about to learn what quanta of arsenic and asbestos were economic to send a baby into profound sleep, when the insect elected to censor the crucial ratios. I enforced a similar disinvitation as I had before, but this time it had a lesser impact. The fly forbore only momentarily, resettling upon my page after only a glimpse of absence. I repeated the treatment a few times more, with crescendoing ardour, but the efforts were each likely fruitless, and the consequences were always the same.

I chose, then, to rest my paper for a moment on the table, while I prepared a more diabolical entreaty to abeyance. The housefly did not stray from its claimed plot of paper. I searched my drawers for the fly swatter I hoped I bought, and found it nowhere. A slipper it is then, and I removed my right sole. I sneaked to the newspaper, where the fly still remained, unknowing and unalerted. I raised my hand, where my weapon was equipped, and primed to reclaim what was mine.

Slap!

Lifting the slipper slowly, I anticipated the insect’s pancaked corpse, but what greeted me was not to see the propagating entrails of the belligerent; my slipper concealed nothing, for I had missed. No, the fly was not there, though I could be certain to have assaulted the correct spot. My shoe had perfectly captured the entire motherhood column, the fly had simply migrated before contact was made, and likely lingered nearby, unscathed.

And indeed, once I removed my slipper entirely, the necessity of search was not imparted me; the fly, recognising the recession of any threats, returned to its precise position on the page. I issued a broad flurry of successive blows, declining in precision and adroitness; but the settling dust only served a blanket to facilitate the insect’s landing.

The only remedy—if anything less than murder can deserve that appellation in such a singularly vexing circumstance—was to forego the completion of that day’s Times, and pursue an alternative diversion; an unwelcome blemish on the beautiful day I have already described. The fly’s focus had centred so stably on that one individual point on the page, that merely turning the paper over sufficed to remove it from my sight. A solution, it appeared; but an obstacle that impeded the complete enjoyment of the day I deserved.

My replacement for the reading was to be the preparation of a hearty meal, to fill my stomach and lift my spirits. I placed a cutting board upon my kitchen counter and grabbed a knife from the utensils drawer. I walked up to my fridge, where the pork loin that was destined to be my dinner was being preserved; however, when I reached for the handle to open the door, a most unwelcome sight stopped me in my tracks.

The fly—the same fly— that had mockingly danced upon my paper, had just settled on the handle of my fridge, its hairy corpus a wart on my appliance. In my sudden spark of anger, I lifted the knife I was holding and stabbed directly at it. The knife made a sharp dent in the plastic handle, but unsurprisingly the fly was untouched; it just resettled in the same place, like it always did, and when I near demolished my fridge door with stabs from my wielded implement, the fly persisted to land with austere indifference. I finally ripped my fridge from the wall and threw it to the ground. I knew the insect would slip out as it always had, but my anger and upset bred its own indifference; and soon I was rolling my fridge over, and removing my pork from its side.

The pest saw the food. A sharp buzzing sound whistled through the air, halted only by six hairy legs sullying the surface of my would-be lunch. I launched the meat to the floor, where it landed next to my sleeping fridge.

Like a beam of spotlight, my line of sight signalled the insect’s destinations of travel. I regarded my fridge, broken and defeated on the floor: the fly leaped unto its pale flank; I glared at my table, where my paper still lay: zip! the fly was there too. Every square millimetre of my abode’s interior was trampled by that singular dastardly fly. I entertained the hopeless remedy of releasing the bug outside, shutting the windows and doors behind it; it always found a way back in: the laws of matter did not dissuade it.

It became a black particle fixed at the centre of my view. When my eyes were resting, and my neck didn’t move, the insect could be a distant atom, or a circular stain of bestial pitch, tainting any picture I could appreciate. If I changed focus, or looked elsewhere, it was as though the vermin could read my thoughts, and a black streak connected the fly’s liftoff and its inevitable landing, once again in the middle of my vision. It was inescapable, and it seemed the pest knew it. It was like it took some sadistic pleasure in the whole ordeal, like it was taunting me, and it knew I couldn’t stop it. I imagined a sardonic smirk spreading on its caricatured head: those bulbous eyes glistening with glee; those hairy paws wringing up some mischievous plan.

It all vexed me more than it should have. Within only twenty minutes, my kitchen was completely desecrated. Shards of broken mugs and shattered plates carpeted the floor, covered intermittently by erupted drawers and unhinged cupboard doors. It was as though a war had happened, and marched through my dining room; and in some sense, in my mind, it had. The cluster of miscellaneous shapes and colours that was now my kitchen was alien to me, and, as if in some circumambulatory fashion my home’s destruction served to plug the fountain of my rage, I could hardly distinguish between what was rubble, and what was the verminous pest. But I knew it was still there. Rarely, I would see it; more often, I would hear its momentary buzzing fly by my ear, spiralling me into a flurry of unaimed flails, before giving me an instant’s peace, and doing so again.

I eventually decided upon a finalising course of action, which would undoubtedly solve my pest problem. It was already darkening out, and I had endured the battle for the entirety of the afternoon, and almost the whole evening as well. After the evisceration of my dining space, I proceeded to dismantle every other room in my house, where each sought moment of peace was abrupted by my adversary. My whole home was obliterated; only its shell remained untouched. A short preamble of hesitation and distant uncertainty stopped me for a moment. Then the certainty materialised—I had no choice.

From my basement, I grabbed the three cans of petrol I stored for emergencies, and began emptying them economically. All over my kitchen debris, all over my curtains; and couches, and everything wooden I could find. My initial doubt about the sufficiency of only three cans was soon dispelled. With my whole house covered, I still had half a can left. I dispensed the remaining petrol over the gaps I allowed for when anticipating the fire’s spread, and made my fuse with a trail leading out the front door. I looked over it all, and was satisfied. There wasn’t much to see, but the smell—the smell promised success. I walked over to my kitchen, carefully navigating within the spots I left unsoaked. I turned each dial on my gas stove: an old model, with no safeguards installed. With each dial brought to its greatest setting, the four eyes let out a low stir to signal they were all active. I left the kitchen, and walked outside.

For the duration of the enterprise, I cannot recall a single instance where I was disturbed by the fly—so soothing was my impending arson. When leaving my front door, I ensured it was locked. All my windows were long closed, from before I even began: there was no means of escape, the bug was trapped inside. I stood back by the can that marked the beginning of my fuse. My home looked so serene from its outside; so perfectly concealing the horror I endured within its walls.

I appreciated it for a second, then lit a match, and set fire to the trail. Some of the petrol had soaked into the earth, but enough remained for a slivering flame to reach my front door. I was momentarily uncertain if my plan had succeeded. Nothing happened. I saw no flames. But my worry was quickly quelled by the glimmering windows. Soon, my house became a Jack o’ Lantern, satiated with flame; and within moments, it was all ablaze. I regarded it with unaffected apathy; I was burning the fly’s cage—I was not burning my home. I sat on the ground for better comfort. There was no fly to be seen. With the help of a little gravity, I tipped over onto the cold night grass. My home was like a bonfire. I cannot recall when I fell asleep.

A fireman prodded me awake; I had slept through the sirens. They had come too late, my house was gone. My awaker escorted me to the ashes, where little survived in a recognisable form. There was a general tumult of professionals rummaging and neighbours gossiping. The fireman asked me for my insurance details.

But I did not hear him. A gross housefly had landed on his jacket sleeve.

5.X.2021