THE FLY

Whether male or female is unknown. I’ll speculate that it was a male. It was flitting about in that elusive way flies have when they get indoors. I chased it into the bathroom, shut the door and thought that would increase my odds of bringing him down.

But it’s astonishing how flies can hide themselves in small, brightly-lighted spaces.

Then, suddenly, I spotted him atop the edge of the mirror over the sink. I had a folded up magazine (I need to buy a fly-swatter) and knew I just could not get an angle on him. He was standing right on the edge of the bracketed mirror. And I had no bug spray.

So, I took out my my blue ceder and cypress eau de toilette. I aimed, sprayed — and Monsieur Fly quickly flew off and out of sight somewhere into the lavatory stratosphere. He did not drop dead into the sink which might have been my wish.

I actually hope he survives, and, upon safe arrival back among his peers, introduces into the airborne masses of Musca domestica of the order of Diptera, being the ordinary housefly, the transforming redolence of the finest Parisian perfumeries.

Never again will any member of that tribe want to land on a stinking pile of dog dung, which habit gives them their well-deserved reputation as disgusting pests. And each and everyone of them will doubtless be a big hit with the opposite sex.

This amounts to my humane and sweet-smelling effort to improve the world order at its lowest level.