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Essaouira, Morocco
The flies in my room never give me any trouble. The
only time I notice them is when they’re passed out on
my ceiling or flying in circles above my smoking
table, but now one is trapped in a Coca-Cola bottle,
trying to fly out while another fly squats on the
bottle’s lip and looks on. His wings are too soaked
with cola to work properly, and after a desperate,
frantic attempt to buzz his way out with wings
furiously beating, he winds up body surfing again in
the week old soda. So I help. I love all things. The
fly is halfway up the bottle now after fermenting in
syrup all night, but he still can’t find his way out.
I tip the bottle, thinking it’ll be easier for the fly
to walk out, and then he’d be free and thanking me
vigorously, and we’d sit and enjoy a good smoke and
hearty laugh. It’ll fly circles around my table and
everything back to subnormal, but I tip the bottle too
much, “whoops,” and he’s engulfed by a river of brown
goo and once again swimming in cola. I try again,
tipping slower now. He struggles to the bottle’s outer
edge as I tip a little more, conscious of my mistakes
from the last time, and force him toward the opening
by advancing the Coca-Cola, and soon he will be free
and glad and everything will be right with the night,
ordered restored and gladness prevailed, only once
free he gets really pissed and starts shaking his legs
violently and making wild sounds then takes off
blindly bouncing off the walls and the light, yelling
at me with evil bug eyes, disturbing all the good
flies who are peacefully sleeping.
It turns out that he is an illegal alien fly, much
bigger than the others, an outsider whom I’ve never
seen before, and had I known I would have taken him
and the bottle down to the alley and dropped him off
there. NO STRANGE FLIES, but he ignored the sign on
the door, or maybe one of the good flies snuck him in
secretly...hmmm...and now all the flies are zooming
through my room in protest, and how’s a guy supposed
to roll a joint with all this commotion? It’s 2 a.m.
and the good flies just want to sleep, but the big fly
is really out of control. He’s huge and rotten deep
and nasty with a super sugar buzz. I try to ignore him
as do the good flies and we resume our nightly
practice of smoking then passing out, but once I turn
out the lights and climb into bed, he starts to stir
and squeal in the total blackness, and I can hear his
evil buzzing which sounds choppy and coded like he’s
plotting strategy and systematically moving in closer
for the kill, and in fact the sounds are growing
nearer but often from different directions, and if his
plan involves confusion, he’s succeeded, because I
cannot tell where he is in the dark, only that he’s
too close and freaking me out. He’s still angry about
something, and he torments me not realizing that I
saved his miserable life...and then I fade away.
The next day I find him back in the bottle. Dead.
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