The Fly

The Fly

“Get out of my house.” Did it bother me that I was talking out loud to a fly? No. Did it bother me that I opened the door and made a gesture of where I expected him (her?) to go? No. Does it bother me that I speak to insects, and animals, (and occasionally inanimate objects)? No, it does bother me when I get caught…

I hear laughter being muffled at the doorway. My husband, Gary. Taking a deep breath I say, “What?” as if I didn’t know what was coming next. He bursts out with the laughter. “You crack me up! What are you talking to now?” he snickered.

“You watch sci-fi every day. Don’t you tell me you don’t occasionally wonder if there is life on other planets.”

“Of course, that’s part of the fun knowing it could be real, that there are other planets with life on them.”

“And yet, you think it’s so funny that I talk to other, real, actually living creatures on this planet.”

"It’s a fly!”

“It’s real, and alive.”

“Ah… I never thought of it like that. It’s a bug!”

“And many of your Sci-fi creatures are like bugs, just bigger… and I might add, not real… at least my creature is real.”

“A fly. The average lifespan of a fly is a couple weeks, a couple weeks!”

“And did you ever think that when we finally find life on another planet, if their average lifespan is five hundred years, that they will think of us and our puny lifespan as not worth saving?”

“No, you’re right, I never thought of that,” he said, trying to keep the smirk off his face.

He left the room, and the fly flew out, and, I almost heard it say, “Thank you!”

Life goes on.