A Midsummer Night's Fly
A fly is in my room. When did it enter my room? I don’t know. How did it enter my room? I don’t know. Why did it enter my room? I don’t know. What is it fucking doing in my room? I don’t have a fucking idea. But it is in my room, circling, buzzing, and annoying.
I put down my million-dollar business at hand and try to do something to this fly. I take one tissue from the tissue box, fold it once, and use it to hit the fly. But the tissue won’t listen to me: it is not stiff enough for me to transfer the momentum even though I brandish my right arm with my greatest strength.
I fold the tissue once again. The tissue becomes stiffer than previously, but it also means that the distance between the fly and my hand is shortened. I am in close combat with the fly now! Goosebumps appear on my skin.
I chase the fly from one corner of the room to another corner. The fly seems to either have super intelligence or is super nimble: It dodges each of my attacks. Maybe there is nothing special with the fly; it’s just that my tissue is not stiff enough.
Why the fuck did I use a tissue to hit the fly in the first place? Was it because the tissue box was the nearest thing to me? Probably. But why did I believe that the tissue could cause any damage to the fly?
Maybe I don’t want to cause any observable damage to the fly. My fiercely brandishing arm manifests my hatred and disgust toward the fly, but in the meantime, the soft tissue indicates my reluctance to be recognized as a violent person.
More importantly, I don’t know how to deal with the fly’s corpse if I leave a bloody killing scene. It will leave a blemish in my room, which is unbearable and absolutely disgusting. That’s why I use the tissue: I hope that fly will just magically vanish into the void by itself.
I suddenly understand why humans invented spray and poisons: We want to kill insects in a more civilized yet hypocritical way. Killing insects with bare hands is not for the fainthearted. We want to kill them without feeling we are bad people. If some magician invests a spell able to banish insects into the void, he will surely become a billionaire.
Does the killing of this fly make me a criminal? Maybe this fly is the Einstein of the fly world, or else how to explain that he dodges my attack every time? Or maybe he’s the fly world’s counterpart of Steven Jobs; his death will deny the fly world the invention of FlyPhone. Or maybe he’s Martin Luther King; his assassination will hamper the racial equality of the fly world.
If this fly has intelligence, will he know that he is being hunted by a creature with higher intelligence? Or will he naively believe what he has encountered is just a natural phenomenon and blame it for his outrageous fortune?
If he does perceive my existence, will he inform his peers, or will he keep the secret to himself? If he chooses to tell his peers, will they believe him or, instead, treat him as a lunatic and send him to a madhouse?
Suddenly, a surge of sleepiness strikes me.
I am circling in the middle air. In the air is a sweet, delicious rotten smell. Chiling bonk, porling fank, beeling fank, laming fank, fiming bonk, prawing bonk… so many delicious foods. It has been a while since my last feast. I try to use my antenna to identify the source of the smell.
Suddenly, a huge white leaf flies to me.
“What the f—” I beat my wings to avoid the leaf.
Why is this leaf white, and why is it flying horizontally?
During the time I am confused, another white leaf flies to me.
Then another white leaf, another white leaf…
I am in a panic. This world is not right today. Is today the so-called apocalypse described in the Bible? Is it the end of the world, or is it just a divine punishment only for me? And what’s this moving mountain? Is it the so-called demon? Why am I treated as such?
I have done nothing wrong. Is wanting to eat a sin? Chiling, porling, beeling, laming, fiming, and prawing are just regular food. I am not asking for dioling or gorling. I have been taught to eat these things since birth. No, this behavior is encoded in my gene. Nature or nurture, I did nothing wrong!
I beat my wings, desperately wanting to escape from this space. But there is no exit.
“How the fuck I ended in this hell in the first—”
I am struck by something hard. I lose control of my body and fall straight downwards. The ground opens a big mouth, and I fall into it.
When I wake up, I am sitting in a savanna. On a branch, a mantis is ambushing a cicada, without realizing that a finch is nearby. Several feet away, elephants are eating grass, a panther is hunting a gazelle, a flock of vultures are foraging on a half-rotten corpse, and around another completely rotten corpse are fluttering a dozen flies.
In this world, every creature has a role. The role of flies is to decompose corpse. This is the calling God gives it. After feeding on corpse, they become the food of small animals, such as birds. And then birds become the food of bigger animals…
The fly in my room does nothing wrong: simply following its instinct. It perceives animal remains in my waste bin, so it enters my room to do the job God assigns. It is me who lures it into my room, and it’s also me who hampers the natural process.
If I didn’t want the fly to enter my room, I should have handled the food waste more carefully or communicated with the fly in a language that it could understand. It is not wise to throw punches at it and expect it to understand my anger.
Humans divide insects into beneficial insects and pests based on their utility to us or our arbitrary favoritism. Bees are beneficial insects because we want to snatch from them the honey they produce. Ants have no utility to us, but we praise them nonetheless for their working ethic.
Flies, on the other hand, are unlucky. They forage on human waste and carry many toxins. For health and aesthetic reasons, we find them disgusting. Nevertheless, they are one of the most important creatures in this world, far more important than humans. Without them, the natural circulation cannot exist.
Humans are unfair not only between us and the other species but also within the other species. Pigs rank among the top in terms of utility to humans—all parts of pigs are useful—they nonetheless became a symbol of filth and are looked at with disgust. On the other hand, cats are mostly useless to humans but are nonetheless regarded as people’s best companions, along with dogs.
We arrogantly play the role of God and judge the values of other species, but unlike God, who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, we judge with obscure, perverted reasons, which sometimes even we do not understand.
To justify and consolidate our judgment, we first invented religion and then science. Islam judges that pork is filthy and their flesh is not edible. Hitler judges that Jews are lesser humans to facilitate his agenda of the holocaust. Science was first a bitch for monarchs (e.g., eugenics) and is now a bitch for money. To help boost the underground economy, scientists claim that marijuana is safe for humans…
While I am in contemplation, the panther suddenly abandons the gazelle and charges at me.
I wake up from a series of horrible dreams. The fly is still circling in the room. I quietly open all doors and windows…