Fly away
There was a fly buzzing around my head. It rested for a moment on my windowsill, so I swatted it. It died instantly, smushed up against a copy of an alt-weekly with the headline “The Victim Lobby.” The fly itself being a victim of an act of extreme violence.
The cops showed up fifteen minutes later. Got word of a homicide in the neighborhood, apparently. They knocked.
“Can I help you, officer?” I asked the tall one, the alt-weekly/murder weapon safely tucked in my sock drawer.
The tall one nodded. “You sure can, son,” he said. “Why don’t you explain to me why a fly’s guts are sprayed across your window?”
“I can answer that. I was sitting at my computer, working away, and then that fly kamikaze’d himself on my window.”
“Did he say why, son?” he asked.
“He did not,” I said. “But I could tell from his buzzing he sounded depressed.”
“Depressed? What did he have to be depressed about? I’m sure there was plenty of food for him in your apartment. He was minding his own business, flying around. Doing what flies do. I think you’re depressed. And you killed that fly out of frustration with your own life. That’s what I think.”
I couldn’t argue with him, so I called my lawyer, who met me at the police station. We got a moment alone in the interrogation room.
“Lee, tell me you didn’t admit to anything,” he said.
“I didn’t. I didn’t admit to being depressed. I said the fly killed itself. I was an innocent witness to a sad moment in that fly’s life.”
“Good,” he said. “Real good. I”ll get you out of here soon.”
