In the deep of winter, a fly hatched in my house on a sunny day, and I made friends with her the next morning. She was the first fly of the new year, and I felt protective of her. She seemed, at the time, like some risen Christ, a miracle of life sprung from brown Ohio winter, an exuberant, vibrant promise of spring.
My maudlin Franciscanism faded, however, as her brothers and sisters emerged from their hidden eggs. One fly I could befriend. Four pushy, loud and aggravating flies were something else again. And the spur of this great epiphany that took me from an idealized spring to one of flesh and blood was the fly that ran into my cheek as I was working at the computer, ricocheted into my mug of tea, and screamed frantically for me to save her.
A week ago I would have rushed to pluck this comrade from certain death. Not so now. I felt a deep affection for the sacred first fly. Now I only saw the flies of everyday life, and they pledged not only the warmth and the clear skies of April, but hoards of other flies, and then Japanese beetles and carpenter bees and yellow jackets, cabbage worms and bean beetles, old enemies of mine, enemies who comforted me sometimes by their existence, but who were adversaries nonetheless.
I realized I would be lonely without them; they were, in a sense, guardian spirits, allies. But then too, I realized I had to set their limits. I, not they, had to be the God of this place. My heart hardened. I might have reached in and rescued last week’s prophet. Instead, I let her drown right there beside my keyboard in the peaceful mug my Quaker sister had given me for Christmas.