Mark Waldron
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There were occasions when I’d lose track of the fly. High and low I’d search for him. Perhaps he’d flown off to have some me-time. Perhaps he’d gone to the park to feast upon its stemless brown flowers with their pedigree bouquets. Sometimes I’d think I’d found him. A fly would alight beside me, and I’d stay with the fellow awhile. I’d start to open up about my plans for him, get a bit too talkative, and he’d start to tell me his story, he’d give his stuffing away, he’d spill his guts, to make me believe he was my fly friend, when all I actually had was a fraud. Because it wouldn’t be the actual genuine fly, it’d be an operative working for my enemies, of whom we know I have many. I’d look closely at him, at the colour of his abdomen. Was it fractionally off, a little too grey, a little too buff? I’d examine, out of the corner of my eye, his watch, might it be a tinny knockoff; and was his intonation a jot too flat or a tad too sharp? Was there a discordant timbre to his buzz? Was he just too there, just slightly overly present? And did he smell of aftershave? Because a true fly never does.
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Fly’s got shit on his hands when the front doorbell rings. Shit, he says, wiping his hands on his already shitty thorax. He opens the door, it’s a delivery fly delivering the week’s shit. Fly carries it in. He fridges some, freezers some, and a handful he slaps down on the kitchen counter to have later for lunch. Then he crawls across to his living room to watch crap on telly. He didn’t bother covering the shit he left out on the counter. When you’re a fly you don’t worry about flies. You don’t worry about shit.
Mark Waldron’s fifth collection, A Straight Up Giant, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2023.
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