I Didn't Want to Hurt the Flies

If I could sit still long enough when I was a kid, a fly might land on me and move around my arm or leg for a little bit. I can understand now why this may sound gross. Flies carry bacteria around on their appendages and contribute to the spread of disease. And so do unwashed human hands… and so many other things in our day-to-day that we chance them not getting us sick.

But they lay maggots that look about as disgusting as any unborn anything.

But I was a kid and I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. It seemed so one-sided watching people indiscriminately kill bugs while protesting when some unjust action was visited upon them. If you dish it out, you should be able to take it. Good advice I received from a lot of people who didn’t take their own medicine and a few that did.

And I was starved for physical touch throughout my childhood, so the tickling sensation I received from the flies was soothing in a way. I didn’t have good examples for contrast in those years. My mom was a hitter. She was raised by a family that hit. Most everyone did in those days. When she was 14, my mother got dragged out of her high school science class by the hair. A reactionary teacher took offense to her refusal to dissect a dead animal and proceeded as he did. She was also an animal lover.

Well, hurt people tend to hurt people, especially the moment when they feel hurt and the power dynamic has shifted, and no longer think about what they are doing from that point... And my mom would get into these knock-down drag-outs with my brother. They would scream at one another the most terrible things, things that a child may be hearing and doing for the first time, whilst the adult has likely been told that their whole lives. Larger chronology, longer exposure, same outcome.

My mom took it until she didn’t. And then, she’d take it out on us, usually my brother though. I became the quiet one very quickly. And I learned to disassociate through movies and TV. I remember trying things out in movies to hide or disguise myself. Acting like a robot in the grocery store, faking a terrible British accent, or being perfectly still. Got that one from Jurrasic Park. And it worked sometimes, usually when there was someone else there who couldn’t be still...

So I let the flies come and go as they pleased. They kept me safe in that way, I suppose… keeping me still and less noticed. Sometimes. I would get upset when someone would come along and try to slap the fly off me. In doing me a favor they would often hit me in the process, sometimes saying “Serves you right! That’s gross!” Maybe they did it to save face from the accidental friendly fire. I didn’t care, about their reasoning. I didn’t want to hurt the flies.

I know how to be still when I need to be. Can I find the stillness within me while my mind continues to roam? Nothing is perfectly still. Our cells are wiggling about as we speak. If I can quiet my mind, can I focus on the inner machinations of my body? Like the careful observations of the fly brushing across the hairs on my arm…

…like a little mountain climber.

Can I feel my blood move? Can I trace its drop through the arteries, across my capillary beds, up its veinous return to its eventual destination, the heart? What do those beats sound like? What do they feel like? Do you feel the electricity in the air?