The fly has been chasing my sanity for three days, varying its own mini tinnitus playlist. It buzzes on the wrong side of my curtains, helps itself to my curling sandwiches, laughing. The cat went after it, on and off, for the first day, but now just cracks a lazy eye, sleeps. By day four, the fly has begun to talk to me. He tells me that he isn’t keen on Cheerios, enjoys cake, doesn’t know where his family is. He stays a while on my shoulder, shows me The Rub, its many stages, explains how important it is that he stays clean, maintains his hygiene levels. I laugh; the fly bristles, zigzags his displeasure in my face.
On day five I wake to find the fly asleep on my pillow. I whisper good morning, reach as slowly as I can for the bug bat. I watch as he buzzes off to my bathroom to use my shower, and to rub his little hairy feet across my toothbrush.
Marie lives with her husband, three sons and their saggy baggy cat. She walks in the nearby fields and writes in the shed. She has short fiction featured or forthcoming in The Birdseed, Re-Side, The Cabinet of Heed, Gastropoda, Moss Puppy, Free Flash Fiction and more. Marie also has poetry in several literary magazines. Twitter @jamsaucer