Day 304: The Fly’s Life

So, where were we? Oh, yes. The fly had just absorbed a white warm ball of energy, felt no pain or need for anything else, and was headed straight for the invisible wall at an alarming speed that would most certainly kill the fly or shatter the glass under the pressure.

It did neither.

Like the time before that and the time before that the fly smashed its head against the glass and bounced off. The only difference this time was that it didn’t hurt. And after attempting five more times the fly gave up. It flew over to the table and landed next to the dry soda pop to think. The need to escape was not so strong anymore. Even though the fly wanted to explore the outside world, it was content with being inside. It concluded that eventually the giants would come home and open up another passage to the outside. The fly would just have to be patient.

So it waited.

And waited.

Night came, morning came, and night came again. There was no jiggle of the handle or the loud metallic sound that echoed throughout the house right before someone would open the door. There was nothing. The next days and several days after that the fly heard screaming outside. It watched out the front window as dozens of giants ran down the street and took off in their vehicles.

Within a few weeks, the silence was unbearable. The only other creatures alive in the house were spiders and the fly knew that getting close to them meant death. The fly didn’t feel like dying anymore. But it did want a friend. It would land close to a spider and attempt to communicate, but they spoke entirely different languages, of course. Eventually, the spiders ate all the bugs in their web and passed away. The fly was alone.

For years, the fly wondered if that white ball of light was a blessing or curse. It was happy that it seemed to be able to live forever, but it was also very bored. The beautiful content of life slowly faded away: like a trickle in the sink, the need to escape pooled up inside of the fly’s heart. It explored every inch of the house, the vents, and under the floors. All the doors and windows were sealed. There were no cracks to squeeze through. The fly was trapped, but it never lost faith in the invisible wall.

There must be a way through.

From that day on, for nearly every waking moment the fly slammed its head and body into the invisible wall. It focused on one spot. Over and over again it flew as fast as it could and slammed into the glass. Fifty years passed without the sound of a giant on the outside. There was not even one furry animal that walked by. The world seemed desolate, but the fly still wanted to see for itself. Plants had grown around the house. The road was barely visible. The wild had taken over the artificial.

Think about shooting a rubber band at a window and expecting it to crack. Think about how long that may take. Would it ever happen? It didn’t matter to the fly. Day after day, it hit that same spot on the same piece of glass. It finally spotted the tiniest of dents forming. Its perseverance was not without reward. Then one day the fly heard a crack. A line had reached out from the dent and crawled up a half of a centimeter. It was working!

The glass eventually looked like a spider web. Every day the fly was sure that the invisible wall was about to break, but it wouldn’t. Something inside the wall held everything together like glue. Then the fly remembered the tall lamp in the other room. For the next year, the fly slammed itself into the base of the lamp, moving it less than a quarter of a centimeter closer each day. But eventually, the lamp was in place. Somehow the fly had to tip it over and shatter the glass. It rammed itself into the stem of the lamp over and over, but the base was too heavy. Even if there was the slightest movement the lamp would wobble back into place.

Hopelessness encompassed the fly. It thought that the only way out of this life was to eat itself, starting with all the legs and then somehow the wings. But then what about its body? It couldn’t even turn its head far enough around to do enough damage. And what if that didn’t work and then he had to continue existing without legs or wings? No, it wasn’t worth it. There was nothing left to hope for. The only thing to do was wait.

No, the fly thought. I can’t stop trying.

It picked itself up, flapped its wings, and charged the window once again. And again. It didn’t stop smashing into that glass until a tiny chip popped out and fell to the ground. The fly didn’t stop after that either. It banged and bashed into that glass for days on end with no sleep, chipping away from the original spot. Then after one monstrous slam, a glass shard popped out the other side of the glass and cool air rushed into the house.

All around it, the fly heard the sound of a thousand little cracks all creaking at once. In an instant, the invisible wall crumbled down around the fly into a heap of broken glass. The outside was at the tip of the fly's antennas. It could feel the wind and smell the grass. The land still seemed desolate, but the fly knew its new mission: to explore and find life.

It turned around for one last look at its home and flew off into the sunrise.

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Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay