What the Hell is This?

(With apologies to Wallace Stevens)

I am no longer alone in my apartment.

This new companion of mine has followed me around for the last week like a puppy. He comes to find me as soon as I come home.

He doesn’t seem all that interested in stray bits of food in the kitchen, like others of his kind; he’s interested in me. He wants to be where I am; he’s all over me, unabashed and inexplicably unafraid. Right now he’s on my left thumb.

I think this fly is in love with me.

**

At first I was annoyed and distracted, swiping and swatting at him as he buzzed loudly around my ears and landed at random places on my body while I was trying to eat, read, or work on the computer. Oddly, he rarely went for my plate. What kind of fly doesn’t go straight for the plate?

Then at some point I suddenly remembered everything I’d been saying about nonresistance, allowing, and presence.

I stopped reflexively swatting, and started paying attention.

**

That’s when I noticed how attentive and attached this tiny creature seemed to be to me, for whatever reason. He was like some microscopic Marcie to my Peppermint Patty.

**

And it occurred to me that I’d be rid of him soon enough. How long do flies live, especially indoors? One day, I knew, I’d find his dried-up little exoskeleton in the corner of a windowsill.

Maybe I should appreciate the company while it lasted.

It’s been years, after all, since I’ve had a pet. Or a significant other for that matter.

**

My insect friend lands on my eyebrow, or nose, and it tickles; I snort with laughter and he momentarily hovers, only to land again somewhere equally ticklish. It really is a disclipline, not to react with a swipe of the hand.

Yesterday morning he landed on my bare back and took a little walk. It felt like a feather-light caress on my suddenly keenly sensitized skin. It was pleasant; I would never have noticed that before.

**

I thought of Byron Katie, and how she awakened one morning without concepts, with a cockroach crawling across her foot. She watched it, fascinated, felt the brush of its threadlike legs. This is perhaps a perfect instance of what is meant by beginner’s mind. There is no more “icky bug;” there is only another living presence in the room with you. Or on you.

**

I held out my hand; he landed there, as if discerning my intention, and proceeded to rub his front legs together and perform what appeared to be some sort of repetitive grooming ritual upon his pin-sized, goggle-eyed head.

I wondered then: do I know you?

**

Just for a moment, that thought flashed through my head; most of the people with whom I spend my time these days believe in reincarnation, and some days I believe in it too.

Could this be someone I once knew, someone who was very fond of me, who died and got busted down to the insect kingdom for some massive karmic infraction?

(It’s embarassing to think, in that light, what this miniscule entity has seen me do in the week we’ve been together. This is intimacy of an order I doubt most live-in couples experience. He sits on my head while I sit on the pot.)

**

Like many humans, this fly likes lips.

Maybe mine are salty, or sweet, or smell like food; whatever the reason, he’ll go there and stay if I let him. Now there’s a challenge — to sit still while a fly wanders around on your mouth.

If this strikes you as disgusting or unhygenic, remember that dogs have cleaner mouths than humans. And you know where dogs’ mouths have been.

**

I wonder if Emily Dickinson had relationships with the spiders in her room. When your world becomes very small and quiet, the smallest things become larger and more audible.

**

My tiny teacher has told me: take nothing for granted. Look. Listen. Notice. Feel every sensation.

Am I a nuisance?

I am what I am.

Rethink your definitions. Befriend me.

I, like you, will not be here long. Take the opportunity to interact, creature to creature. It might not be as bad as you think.

**

The stillness in the room seems odd. I’ve actually called out, “Where are you, fly?”

He was repeatedly kissing my face goodnight before I went to sleep last night. Maybe he knew something I didn’t.

In the corner of my eye, the shadow from a fly or bee outside dances in the bright square of sunlight on the bed; my head whips around.

Nothing. I am the only motion in the apartment.

A quick sweep of the window areas and under the radiators is inconclusive. I check the corners and beneath furniture and find only dust bunnies.

I am most definitely alone.

Again.

**

The dripping of the kitchen faucet into the cup beneath it is making a syncopated music.