Day 1
It was the evening of the second of October when a fly entered the house of James Solistie. He lied in the middle of his large bed with his blankets pulled to his chest. He was dreaming with his eyes slightly open, pawing at images of his childhood home.
The fly flew through the window above a green plant and explored the surface of James’ room with smug disinterest. She perched on the corner of a lamp, and rubbed her legs together, glancing at the unconscious lump before her. She was in search of a meal, and gently buzzed around the corners of the brown table, and a beige vase in hopes that the human would have left some remnant of a peach, or even blackberries if she were very lucky. She clutched onto a framed photograph on the wall across from the brown table. She scratched the top of her lovely green head and scrutinized her reflection in the glass. She wished that her eyes had been larger at birth.
A cold wind awakened James. He rolled over to the edge of the bed, and with a very long and lazy arm, he managed to shut the window. He sighed and retreated to his dreams of a childhood he thought he had.
The fly heard the closing of the window with an immaculate dread. She rushed to the sill and slammed her beautiful body into the dusty glass. She searched for a crack in the frame, a hole in the wood, a sliver of freedom, some sign from the Gods. But like most human-made windows, this one was shut tightly so that life could not leave nor enter. She perched herself on to the green plant and took three large fly breaths.
“Okay Katherine, everything is going to be okay,” she said to herself. “I will search the remainder of this stupid house. I will find a way out.”
She turned to the human that lied peacefully on his large back.
“I hate you.” She said. And she flew from the green plant in the direction of the door of James’ room, which stood ajar for any possible insects that wished to travel leisurely throughout the Solistie labyrinth.
XXX
James stretched his long arms and yawned with his wide mouth at 7:20 the next morning. The sun had begun to lightly singe the roots of his chest hair, urging him into consciousness. He rolled over and stared at his watch, 7:20. He rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling, 7:21. He sat up in his bed and turned to look out of the window which he had shut during the middle of the night. He stared at the green plant blocking his view of the trees outside. She loved green. James began to sob quietly. He retreated to the cavern of his blanket and breathed heavily. It hurt in his chest, under his chest hair. It burned when he breathed deeply; it stung the way the sun scorched his eyes when he opened them. He could not go back to sleep. It was a Tuesday.
XXX
Katherine had yet to find a way out of James’ house, but she did manage to perch herself on a half-eaten banana that he had left out the night before. She sat on his kitchen counter and thought for a while how nice it was to feel the moon on her wings. She was born two days before this one amidst 150 other writhing maggots, in the bottom of a drain on the other side of the town. The other pupils expressed how badly they wanted to hump each other, and how they couldn’t wait to vomit on humans and hump each other some more. Katherine didn’t see the appeal in humping. She wanted to see the earth and the sky; she wanted to watch the sun rise over Mount Kilimanjaro. She wanted to fall in love.
James stumbled into the kitchen where Katherine was. She did not move. She wasn’t afraid of being murdered by his bulbous hand. She stared at his face for a moment. His sadness reflected in her eyes in a kaleidoscope of green and black.
“You would most likely feel better if you ate something, human,” Katherine said. “Not that I really care what you do.”
“I can’t eat anything,” James said. “I miss her too much. It hurts so much.”
“Suit yourself,” Katherine said. She flew away into the bathroom, in search of escape.
James poured himself a filtered glass of water and unscrewed the top of an orange bottle. He swallowed three white pills and stared at the empty sink. A sunbeam twinkled across the granite counter, bending unnaturally through the double paned glass. Like many humans, James had not yet learned how to live comfortably with sadness. He could not look sadness in the eye, and so it attacked him the way an animal bites when it feels threatened.
He lied on the couch and fell asleep, and he did not wake up until evening.
Day 2
Katherine was growing restless. She had found a stack of old National Geographic magazines in James’ study and flipped through them with her sticky claws. The world was incredible in the eyes of the tiny fly. It was an abundance of bright colors and tall mountains; massive beasts that jumped and tiny fishes that dove into the depths of an incalculable sea. She read a piece on Paro Takstang, a sacred Buddhist temple located on the cliffs of Bhutan. Her five eyes chased over the details of the featured photograph, mesmerized at the marriage of a humanmade temple and an ancient mountain. She felt an unidentified emotion well up inside of her trachea, and then she heard James cough from the other room.
“Yes, I’d like to use a personal day, not a vacation day,” he said into the phone. “Sure, that would be fine, yes… yes… thank you.”
Katherine flew into the room he occupied and perched herself in front of him.
“You’re not going to leave today?” she asked.
“I think I should stay here,” he said, “I’m not feeling well.”
“What are your symptoms?” she asked.
He sat on the couch and wiggled his slippers off his unwashed feet. His black hair glistened with moisture. It was 8 in the morning, and the autumn sun warmed the red couch cushions. He did not answer Katherine, so she asked another question.
“What happened to her – the girl in the photograph?”
“She doesn’t love me anymore,” James said, his face unchanged.
“Why?” Katherine asked.
“I don’t really know what happened. One minute we were eating sandwiches at Nell’s and the next she was crying, and she left. She said a lot of things, but I don’t remember. I couldn’t hear her over the thoughts in my head.”
“Maybe she left because of your indifference,” Katherine said.
“I don’t know why I’m sharing this with you; it’s not like you know anything about relationships,” James snapped.
“You’re trying to hurt me because you are hurt,” Katherine said. “I’ve read that humans do that.”
“Maybe it’s our defense mechanism – the way you can puke acid,” James said.
“I can’t puke acid,” said Katherine.
XXX
Katherine buzzed around the rooms of the house while James slept on the couch. It was 430 in the afternoon, and already the sun started to sag in the sky. He had left the television on in his bedroom; a meteorologist pointed at images of a fallen tree and a wet yellow dog. Katherine flew closer to the screen.
“Rowan is still packing 120 mph maximum sustained winds and heading southeast at 15 mph,” the meteorologist said as she rested her hands on spiraling images of the hurricane. “It will start to lose momentum as it reaches Georgia, which is great news for Falcons fans this Sunday.”
A camera followed a middle-aged man through his home as gestured towards his waterlogged furniture. The carpet was wet with rain, and he wore tall rubber boots as he walked through his kitchen and pointed to a large hole in the ceiling. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
The sun was setting, and Katherine could feel a slight chill in the air. The October nights were growing colder and darker, and the moon was much smaller than the night the fly was born. She closed her five eyes and entered an unconscious state somewhere between relaxation and regret.
Day 3
(to be cont.)
Non Epiphany 