Fly By

"Nothing interesting ever happens to me. Ever. Trust me."

He thought on it for a moment, dull expression briefly lighting up. “Oh wait, my cousin Dane got stuck between a window and a screen the other day. Yeah.” A furry leg scratches the back of his head with returned boredom. “They’re looking into if it was attempted trapping or not. So…”

Michael’s teacher stills for a moment, tries to act like he’s pondering a story out of that information, then extends his feathered wing forward and grabs the framed picture on his desk, situated next to a mug that says You’re Owlsome. 

“Listen, I know life can be hard for a fly.” Michael doubts Mr. Kingsley knows that, so he fixes his kaleidoscope stare out the window, waiting for this conversation to be over. “...still I can’t help but think you’re not trying to enjoy yourself in this class. Or rather, apply yourself.” 

Michael interrupted him, if not for the sake of hurrying things along, then to somewhat state his case. “Listen, I know you’re very wise and all that,” the frame freezes midway, his teacher’s feathers already ruffling from the interruption. Still, Micheal continued, hovering with a buzz over the giant oak desk, “and I respect it, but I’ve got like maybe 20 days left to live. You, you’ve got like 20 years. I can see why stories and all that are important to you.”

Mr. Kingsley tried to speak, but Michael firmly held up a leg,

“Me?” He gestures to his small self, “I don’t really see the point in telling them when I barely have time to live one. Take those guys for instance,” birds sing to one another outside, signaling their departure home, no doubt chirping nonsense that’s meant to awe their fellow students with its secret melody, “they sing their song, la de da da da, but who remembers them? Nada. No one. They just get replaced with the next bird with a pretty song and life goes on. Why bother flaunting talent when it will always be one-upped, overshadowed. My story means zip. And so does my existence. How about this?” He lands on the desk, back slumped. 

“You make the assignment due by the end of the month, I’ll be well into my retirement age by then – if I haven’t already dropped dead or been swatted to the high heavens – and I’ll tell you all about how my sons wipe my fuzzy butt or my back hurts so bad I fly with like a sagging Ziploc of jelly. Deal?” He extends a slack leg. 

The studious owl seems hardly impressed, wing once again holding out the pointless frame. 

“Just…look at this. Tell me what you see.”

It was a picture of Mr. Kingsley and his mate Jue, whom he mentions often, and two chipper-looking owlets perched in front of them on a large, sturdy branch. Their hollow entrance is to the left, thoughtfully decorated with entwining twigs and leaves. It's a nice family portrait. Though with his vision, this image has been multiplied an uncomfortable amount of times, shoving the colors and multitude of owls down his throat till it’s all he sees. 

Michael asks, “An ad for indigestion supplements?” 

“No, no, no. That was for Chlamydia and you know that’s not what I’m asking.” 

The antsy bug adjusts his backpack and sighs again. “This,” he splays his feathers on the photo, eyes widening till there’s just Michael and his reproachful reflection “is a story. Correction, it’s a million stories, some small, some bigger, that have come together for a singular captured moment. Moments that get you down, events you witness, challenges that shape you. Even the way you wear that pack like it’s a sagging burden of tasks tells a story. If you don’t think you have it in you, that’s just folly. Look. Listen. Write.” A feathered brow lifts in question, waiting. 

Michael keeps buzzing, trying hard to look pensive. The teacher gives an exasperated sigh, setting the frame down and instead tearing a tiny scrap of paper off a blank sheet. A quill scribbles in the classroom’s silence, making Michael think he’s going to be written up for lack of enthusiastic participation, again. 

“Here,” A talon slides the scrap of paper across the table, Michael buzzes down to pretend to read it, eyes glazing over and unfocused on the neat writing “This is your unique assignment for the week. I would like you to, well, be a fly on the wall. Observe. If you do not believe there is a story in you, go out and seek one. That way, once you’ve found an interesting one, please do not let it be about your cousin, then you can focus on form and structure, less on content. Deal?”

Michael starts rolling up the scrap of paper like he does his write-up slips, sauntering from one end to the other, annoyed but used to the fact it won’t fit in his pack, then hauls it into flight. 

“Sure thing, Mr K. I’ll get right on it. I heard the lunch ladies are serving expired rhino meat to the lion pack. Maybe I’ll get the inside scoop on the aftermath. After all, what else is a fly good for if not digging around in everyone else’s shit?” The sarcastic grin fades on Michael’s face, returning to its natural state of boredom. 

“Right, exactly!” Mr. Kingsley ushers his student out of the classroom, then shuts the door with a thwap that propels Michael across the deserted hallway, everyone gone for the day. Michael buzzes along for a minute, struggling to hold up the thick scroll of paper, and thinks about the assignment with a sigh. It’s horse shit, he thinks. His stomach then rumbles against his will. Why should he spend his time writing about other people’s lives when he should be spending every precious second he has left doing grand and worthwhile like…like…sigh. He flies home. 

~

On the flight home, Michael saw a hawk carrying a stick back to its nest and barely made sense of the chunky caterpillar struggling to stay atop one end. He debated following the bird on its journey home, tracking the soon-to-be short-lived life of the worm, and claiming a story of heroism and sacrifice and possibly even epic transformation before a deadly foe. Not that he cared about more than his assumed state of detachment and imminent demise, to be sure. 

He buzzed closer, keeping a safe distance. The pudgy insect’s little legs kicked back and forth, attempting to swing its body up and over the other side, but it proved to be too bottom-heavy. Once he saw a splat of bright green twitching on the pavement moments later, Michael knew the story was lost. He threw his head back with angst. “Ugh, nothing interesting ever happens to me.” Glum and bored once more, he treks back home, leaving the scrawled assignment soaking in a lone puddle of what smells like lion piss. 

~

The next day is Michael’s birthday. His parents threw him a surprise party in a cow carcass, going all out with piles of pig feces and plates stacked with broccoli so putrid you could see the smell wafting off it in thick sickly green waves. He was pretty impressed. Not that he’d let it show. If he could accomplish one thing in his month-long life, it would be to convince everyone that this sucks. Or to at least convince them he knew better than to celebrate. Slumped in a chair, the top crowned with delicately twisted sardine bones and a cushion made of abandoned duckling fuzz, Michael surveyed the party before him. A big red 7 was painted on an arching cow rib, inflated tadpoles danced, or rather thrust their bodies with impressive effort, on either side, webbed feet tied with string to the corpse platform. 

He imagined the painted number to mean years, not days, but the reality couldn’t be kept at bay longer than a few moments. Almost middle-aged with little to show, Michael huffed at his friends and family chattering with conversation or whooping as they slid down the rotten banana peel, quickly getting back in line to relive the short thrill. Near the entrance, he saw his uncle chatting up an attractive fly who looked to be about 15 days younger than him. He must have blown his speech because she buzzes away with annoyance moments later, her cup of diet cola drips down his scrunched brows and frowning ‘stache. His uncle stalks away.

“...yeah, did you hear about what he did in the teacher breakroom?” 

Michael’s ears perk up to a conversation behind him. A quick glance proves it’s two of his fly classmates leaning over the buffet table, exchanging glances to the left and right, making sure no one is eavesdropping. Though a smart fly, like Michael knows himself to be, would also know they hope people are looking, or else why would they discuss such secret things in a communal area? He digresses these thoughts. 

“Yeah, what a wackjob. I mean, he’s a great teacher and all, but you can’t be right in the bird-brain if you do something like that. I’m surprised he didn’t get canned.”

“Exactly. I mean, Mr. Carter sounded pretty concerned when he was talking to Eliza about it. And he’s a great coach who always gives me a passing grade when I don’t feel like flying the mile, so I don’t know why he’d lie about it. He’s just too nice, ya know?”

“Mhm. Eliza said her uncle swore it was true. He told her at their family reunion last week.”

This must have happened right before I started, Michael thought to himself.

The exaggerated whispers continue over the mashed potato-peel pile, details flowing from the flies' mouths like juice from a fruit. A smile spreads over Michael’s usually rested face. 

~

“No no no no. This is not what I meant.” Michael’s story hits the table with a thwap. 

He had turned in his story this morning, modestly proud of himself for the ingenuity and creative liberties he took, while taking the important bits of conversation he needed to make it seem real. He had stayed up all night laboring over the papers now splayed on Mr. Kingsley’s desk, marked with red circles and punctuation in nearly every sentence. 

“But Mr. Kingsley, you said to draw inspiration from real life. What’s the issue?” 

The owl’s chest puffs and his beak clicks with disbelief, “The issue, Michael, is that this,” he covers the paper with his wing, “is not based in reality. The assignment was to listen to a real conversation. Without a doubt, this did not derive from reality. Or anything real. In fact, it seems you’ve made up complete lies. About me, specifically.” His brow arches and his globular eyes swallow the fly in their hypnotic, questioning gaze.

“Mr. K., it’s chill. I don’t think anyone actually cares you ate another teacher’s clearly labeled seared fish that they had purposefully laced with the good ol’ white devil which made you hoot around the teacher’s lounge for two hours spinning your head in circles and pronouncing your secret love for Owl Direction. I won’t tell your kids you bought them tickets last year just so it wasn’t weird that a middle-aged owl was front row at their concert.” Arms crossed with leisure, Michael smirked at the creature opposite him, whose feathers looked so ruffled and eyebrows so high he was worried his teacher was frozen and couldn’t escape the position.

“Teachers can be real grudge holders, huh?” Michael asked. 

Mr. Kingsley ground out, “That teacher was fired.”

“I think they were on their way out anyway.” Michael absent-mindedly scratches his head. 

A heavy sigh leaves the over-won owl’s beak. “Fine. Something along those lines may have occurred at one point or another in the teacher’s lounge. And actually…” a glance at the top paper, “the part about the owl being a burly knight is quite nice. If only you could have excluded the drug-laced mushrooms he finds along the forest road and his subsequent episode.” 

“But then it would have been all fiction Mr. K, and I was trying to stick to the assignment.”

Michael leaves the classroom with a smug smile and extra buzz in his fly. Mr. Kingsley, though still bristled and harsh of tone, changed his initial grade from a D- to a B after ample time to cool off, as well as a promise from Michael to not eavesdrop on conversations concerning teachers that could be easily misconstrued. Maybe there was a point to this story thing after all, he reflected.