Pulling The Wings off Flies
Pulling The Wings off Flies
I found myself wondering the other day, what would it be like. Not something I remember thinking on before.
What would it look like to do so? Would I care or feel nothing at all?
In the dark when I have one small source of light, they will bombard it or my face if the light is reflected on it.
What has shifted here? My reaction has surely changed.
When I slip into numbness when feelings are too overwhelming to stay with. I do the work of finding them or let myself sit quietly.
I read an article yesterday and the day before, slowly making my way through. Sentences read a few times each. The vocabulary unfamiliar, the subject matter brutal. The writing beautiful and understandably riddled with the tiniest errors.
If I am a fly to them and you are as well. Playing with us to see how we will react. Playing with dosages of this and that. Dividing us from each other so we will loose connection.Â
I didn't pull the wings off the fly.
I sat and audio journaled. Not for another to hear or even for myself to listen to later. Just as a witness in the moment, it somehow helps.
I wasn't in feeling. But when I spoke to the article I had read, I began to sob.
On a breezeway between garage and house, 7 years old, as was my out-of-town guest, who I did not know: we had been tasked with getting rid of the few fat flies so the adults could come out and drink, smoke, eat; drink and smoke some more, in peace. We had swatters, which often stunned or disabled, at least temporarily. I don’t remember who had the idea first. We both participated, even setting some of the wingless in a dish of water. We watched and laughed stupidly at their circular antics. Science without a con-science. What is a fly without wings? Got old quick, as the Adults started asking questions, wanting to indulge.
Every so often, I recall some of my various cruel, stupid, abusive antics. Not interested in that stuff anymore; too close to the end of the line. Not enough time to make amends. If I need to kill an insect, so be it, but let it be done. Forgive me, or not, I sin.
Mercy: Not getting what I deserve.
Grace: Getting what I don’t deserve.
Your postcards from life are very evocative; my comments run on...