The chimes from the grandfather clock echoed up the hallway announcing midnight. I turned out the light hoping to quickly drift into sleep when it started. It must have emerged from some obscure crack in the woodwork. I could hear it coming. At first it was content to buzz about the inside of the screened window but then it discovered me lying silently in bed. It was a gigantic fly. I could not see it in the darkness but it had to be gigantic for soon the roar of its aerobatics filled the room with deafening dopplerized sound. How could I ever get to sleep? Then it was silent. “Ahh,” I thought, “it has gone into another room.” I could not have been more mistaken for in a moment I felt it walk off the bedcovers unto my nose.
I am not sure how long this sick party went on for I eventually drifted off. Too soon it was morning. As I staggered across the room I spotted the monster. He was lying belly up, feet to the sky, by a window. I felt not a twinge of remorse. I was glad he was gone to fly heaven. I cannot even imagine what that must be like. Actually I can but don’t want to mention it.
Flies don’t fare well in Scripture. They star in Exodus 8 during the plagues in Egypt and Solomon does mention them in Ecclesiastes 10. He wrote, “As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.”
Written by Roger Bothwell on July 15, 2002
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