Goodbye, My Pet Fly
It was the eve of my latest heartbreak. I came home drunk, my face full of tears, and there you were, a tiny, innocent dot on the wall. A fly swatter, Raid, even the merciless Bug-A-Salt — you evaded my every attack. It was as if you wanted to be here. And then I felt something most peculiar: I wanted you to be here, too. So, I let you live.
By next morning my heart had nearly split in two. A crack ran through it bigger than the Liberty Bell’s. But when I flipped over in bed and found you resting gingerly on my nightstand, the pain was gone. Some mysterious salve had healed the crack all at once. With a sigh I wondered, Why, little fly, why do you stay? What fate is in store for a lonely professor of literature and a member of a species of which the world would rather be rid?
At first I thought you had come to polish off the Doordash leftovers littered about my apartment. Not that I minded. Cleaning tzatziki sauce off you with a spray bottle made me forget all about the extinction of my romantic life. Or perhaps out of selfishness I held you here against your will. In fact, I was so broken and befuddled that I could have hallucinated you altogether.
No. You were real. I know because every day with you was like magic. And because of the stack of Polaroids I have of us doing goofy stuff together. My favorite is the one where I beamed a laser pointer into your eyes and turned them into disco balls.
Remember the first time we watched Singin’ in the Rain? You sat nibbling on a piece of popcorn, and every time I laughed, you buzzed your wings with me. Every time I cried, you flew onto my knee and stared up at me until I smiled again. That was when I knew you really cared.
You weren’t like my human friends. You were there for me as I wallowed my days away, fresh out of love. You didn’t laugh when I told you why my relationship fell apart. You knew I could never be with someone who thought Rimbaud was an 80s action movie hero.
But it wasn’t just your affection that drew me to you. We even shared the same taste in high art. One night when you thought I was asleep, I heard you buzzing your wings to the tune of Wagner’s Tannhauser. I even caught you licking my six-volume leather-bound collected Shakespeare set. But what’s more, you were educated and humble. You could have written a six-movement symphony, but you were happy just to lap up the plaque encrusted onto my bathroom mirror.
Most people find flies unsettling, even revolting. Especially the way you rub your devious, conniving palms together all the time. And it doesn’t help that your entire social world revolves around steaming piles of excrement. But why should I fault you for your quirks? They’re what make you you. Milk sprays through my nose when I watch Tom and Jerry. Is that such a crime?
Living with you was so easy that I imagined us as forever roommates, forever friends. I felt safe with you, that I could trust you with even my darkest secrets. In all my multitudes, I felt so seen by your thousand and one eyes.
But then reality stuck a dagger in my back. The more you clung to the window, pining for your friends and family, the more I knew our time was coming to an end. If I truly cared about you, I had to let you go, even if my heart shriveled into a cold, lifeless raisin. I drank myself to a stupor, flung the window open, and shooed you off to a new life.
This is the way the world ends, I thought. Not with a bang, but with a buzz.
Now the nights go by, my love-forsaken life a dreary blur, and yet I think not of her, but of you. I left more Doordash on the windowsill to see if you might return. But every fly that came was an imposter. As soon as I read them a sonnet or played a fantasia on my harpsichord, they zoomed away to their uncultured hives.
All this is to say, If you’re still out there, please consider coming home. My window is ever open. It would be so very nice to — oh, God, please, come back! It’ll be even better than before. You’ll have your own terrarium, complete with marble palaces, Hanging Gardens just like the ones in Babylon, and a king-sized bed made of Turkish dung, which I’ll replace every morning by hand. I’ll even save you a moldy falafel sandwich, utterly drenched in tzatziki sauce.
O winged companion, if you can hear me, come home. Please, dear Christ, come home.
