I didn't want to hurt him. But I did. I slapped him hard.
I thought maybe I killed him.
I felt terrible. It wasn't a fair fight. And I really didn’t mean it. And then when I couldn't find him. . . that terrified me. There would be repayment for such a horror. I deserved it.
Pease let him be all right. I should not have hit him so hard. Now I’m worried that I’ve killed him. I’m anxious, holding my breath in panic without realizing I’m doing it until I gulp a life-giving chunk of air. Terrified. I had no right.
No. Maybe? Did I have a right? I had asked him to leave. I held open the door. I waved him out so that he’d understand.
But he didn’t leave. I grabbed something so I wouldn’t have to get too close to him, and I hit him with it. I hit him harder than I thought I could.
I'm so much bigger. I didn’t think about being stronger. I'm only a woman but I’m stronger than him.
What have I done!
Please not that—don’t let him be dead.
Where is he? Why do I wish so hard that I have not killed him? I can’t find him and that frightens me even though I want him gone. And still do. Even though I wish I haven’t hurt him badly.
It feels terrible because I’m mostly feeling that I had no right. Is that it? Injustice? An unfair fight? It would have never been a fair fight, and I had snuck up on him anyway. I thought he would see me, but I crept up on him and I swung hard. Very hard.
Where is he? Why is he not clinging to the wall as he was when I attacked him? Where is his body?
I search on the floor. No. Nowhere.
Now I worry that I’m going to be punished. And I should be. He was alone, maybe he just wanted someplace warm. . . I had no right.
We are the caretakers of other animals, not the rulers. I should have left him alone in peace, let him stay clinging to the wall. But no, the human scum that I am is the example of our breed because I insisted I had to eradicate him.
Crush him just because he was in my house? A guest for a moment.
And now, where is he?
I'm a terrible person. I try to find him. I look and I look but I can't find him. No body remains.
How is that possible? I went to bed feeling like the worst person in the world.
I couldn't find the body. I worried that someday it would come back to haunt me. Not the body itself, but its retribution.
I'm a terrible person. He did not deserve that.
He did not deserve to be killed by me.
But then in the morning I looked, and he was there! Clinging to the wall. Then later. . . in a different spot. He wasn't on the wall where I saw him after I swung at him and knocked him down.
It couldn’t be that bad after I hit him hard. No. He was alive.
My own fly. He was alive!
I am so relieved now. So pleased. I will take care of him. He deserves to live and I will take care of him.
It's my responsibility.
I feel so accountable because this is not the first friend I have had who is a fly.
When I had my loft on the Bowery, my cat Squeak and I used to sit in the warm sun at rear of the long space at the kitchen table. And there was a fly who came and joined us in that warmth. He hung out with us.
And that fly was a very amiable companion.
He didn't ask for anything, never made demands, and just sat with us. The three of us in arow: me, the black cat, and the fly there on the edge of the table near us. It was very cold in the loft.
It was cold then because after the renovation the landlord had taken out the big old blower-heater that hung from the ceiling. It made noise like an airplane factory, but it made the big space warmer.
The baseboard heating they replaced it with never made that twelve-hundred square foot space with thirteen-foot high ceilings warm. It never warmed that place.
So me, the cat, and our new friend, the fly, we would sit quietly in a row at the kitchen table at the back of the loft overlooking our rare and comforting roof-extension fake terrace. And we would warm up together in the sun's glow.
A fly of my own, a fly of our own. The fly never bothered the cat, and he never bothered me. He didn't land on us or buzz around. He kept his own space.
So now, many decades after that, this new fly, this being, has the same --what to call it? --respectful distance. He keeps it by clinging on his own to the wall or to a paper portion of the shoji screen room divider. What a courteous fly.
I worry a little because this morning although he is back up on the screen, his wings are up kind of in a V from each side of his body. They are not lying flat along his back.
I hope that doesn't mean anything bad. Yes? No? Is he OK? Does he seem OK?
I check on him whenever I go into the kitchen. I turn on the light to make sure his tiny form is still there. And sometimes from the other side of the translucent screen I make sure his little shadow is still there. It makes me feel good to have my own fly roommate. Is there any easier companion? It's comforting to know that he’s here and that he likes me. I'm sure he likes me.
He doesn't run, or fly away, when I come into the room.
We live polite, separate, roommate lives—me and my fly.
Me and the fly on the wall. His presence comforts me. I do feel his presence, this other being. I'm happy I didn’t hurt him. I'm relieved that I am forgiven for trying to kill him. Such a terrible thing to have even thought about!
Thank you for being alive, for staying alive, my little fly.
You took away my stain of dishonor. I’m not the immoral conquering human. Humans never give a fair fight.