Born in the dark alleys, amidst heaps of rotting refuse, this is no ordinary fly. On the day it was born, an incandescent white dove had glided overhead, portending a great fly in the wait. Its mother had decided on the spot that its going to be named after the auspicious dove, but had been unable to convey her decision since she was immediately eaten up by the auspicious bird.
The fly is, naturally, unaware of its mother's misfortune, nor of its own name. It had earned its own name in its own right; having lived a total of 2 months, it is already one of the most experienced fly around.
The fly has one abnormality; it is born with a squint: the left eye tends to wander. That is to say, while other flies see a thousand images reflected in their thousands facets of both eyes, this fly sees double that. It might have accounted for its longevity, it might not.
Altogether, it is a humble fly. It has no illusions about the future; one day is as good as any, so long as it could roll about in the dumps every nightfall, and perform the dance with some females every now and then. That has on occasions, led to no small embarrassment--til now, he couldn't quite figure out how to tell the females from the males. The only consolation being the rest of the community similarly in the state of confusion.
Suddenly something jolts it out its reverie. Whirling quickly towards the origin of the smell, its myriads of small eyes zooms in on a plate of prawns lying innocently on a table. The smell of the thing overwhelmed its head, and it made a beeline for it.
A slight change in the air pressure is all the warning it got. Flipping itself desperately, it somersaults in two tight loops, the extra momentum carrying it narrowly beyond the path of a black fly swat passing through the strip of air it occupied a moment ago.
There is a slight pause. As though the owner of the fly swat is surprised at the miss.
Then the air erupts in a flurry of blows, coming in from all directions, seeking to squash the fly in its ever tightening range. The fly clamps down on its teeth, dodging the millions of swipes it sees, slipping through the gaps in between the strokes. It is a matter of life and death, literally.
An orange coloured fly swat joins in the fray, and the air is practically humming with death. But still, it has not lived its life thus far for nought: every feint is quickly seen through, every killing stroke carefully averted.
Abruptly, a pair of chopsticks weaves in amidst the wild swipes of the two flyswats, and would have crushed the fly between its metal vises had it not seen it coming head on, so silent it has been. As it is, the chopsticks only missed its left antenna by mere nano-inches. A martial arts exponent, it thought, judging from the efficient way it reaches in from afar and withdrawing just as fast to allow for the swinging of the swats.
The split second it is distracted, it finds itself being pursued in the horizontal path of the black swat. Cursing itself inwardly, it tries to angle off left before climbing. It soon realises its mistake when the orange swat swerves with frightening speed in midstroke to meet the black swat with the full intention of catching it in between.
With a desperation it is coming to feel, it flattens its wings and banks sharply, plunging downwards, spiralling furiously between the two rapidly narrowing swats. It clears the fatal runway at the last instant before the two swats rams into each other; spiralling brings it face to face with the two hideous swats screaming past its face that set its teeth chattering with the sheer force of it just before they clamped shut.
For a moment, it could see bits and pieces of the previous victims that had fallen under the twin weapons; appendages and abdomens frozen forever in the cracks and folds of the swats.
More by instinct than anything, it kicks with all its strength at the two swats just as it clears them, adding to the air impact, propelling it even further from the swats, thus barely avoiding the chopsticks as it snaps at the spot it has vacated split seconds earlier.
Wings almost a blur, it flings itself away from the table. A dozens rubber bands followed it, dashing themselves against the wall with a loud smack when they missed.
Escaped! The fly exults in triumph. It could hear the exclamations of the hairless apes in the distance. "No fly have escaped my swat for years!" "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! IT GOT PAST MY CHOPSTICKS!"
So much for the martial arts exponents, the fly thought smugly, that wasn't too hard...
WHAM!
A toddler lifts one of its pudgy foot, exposing the half flatten fly.
"Where did it go?!?"
"Quick, find it!"
Drawing breath is a mighty effort, but the fly grits its teeth, resolutely keeping its eyes closed. It has been through situations like this, as long as it keeps its cool, recovery is not a problem, playing dead is only...
WHAM WHAM WHAM
The toddler bends to examine the gooey remains of the fly, fascinated at how the insides of the fly possess a distinctly different colour from the fly itself.
The search for the fly continued, but the apes never found it.
Left lying desolately in a corner, the grave of a legend never to be found again remained unmarked, all alone.
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