It was just like any other night. Sometime in the early a.m. I made myself some Ramen and sat down to watch a low-budget horror movie with my friend ‘Anna. At the start, everything seemed to be going normal. The noodles were salty and body-destructively delicious and the movie was practically leaking an abundance of gore and bad acting. Plus, ‘Anna had totally admitted I was the boss of her and everyone else in the world [citation needed]. What more could I ask for in life?

Well, for one thing, I could have asked God for a world without flies.

I have no idea where they all came from. Usually, my room is bug-free. The only other living organism within the four walls of my abode consists of the adorable baby shark I’ve been raising in my closet over the past three months. All other intruders are consumed by my aforementioned pet as a warning to the rest of the burglar kingdom.

But last night … something was different. There were flies. Everywhere. Flying.

They came like magic. One second, my room was Heaven, and then suddenly it transformed into some kind of Bug Hell. Everywhere I looked, there they were, making annoying buzz noises. I tried to focus all my attention on the movie but after so long I just couldn’t take it. The only light in my room at the time was the laptop screen—which was directly in front of my face. How could I concentrate on anything other than the army of kamikazes coming straight for me?

I ducked, but they swerved to meet me. They tried to fly into my eyes and I closed them and before long they were buzzing in my eardrums. I smacked at my face, inflicting more damage on myself than any of the bugs. They started crawling across my laptop screen with their pathetic little bug legs and it took all I had not to kick my computer square in its electronic jaw. They seemed to be everywhere, bugging up on me. Pun intended. Bitch.

By then I had completely forgotten there was even a movie playing. I had clamped both eyes shut, crossed my arms over my chest, wrapped around my bent knees, and was just rocking there in my chair, repeating the same line over and over in my head:

I knew I should have built that scare-spider I knew I should have built that scare-spider I knew I should have built that scare-spider.

For a moment, I was actually foolish enough to believe this simple gesture had caused all the bugs to leave me be—but then I felt something crawling around my palm … within my closed fist.

Slowly, I held the hand out in front of me and uncurled it, revealing a green-specked fly standing there on my skin, just staring me in the eyes. Trembling in fear, I waited for the creature to flee from my presence, but the crazy sonofabitch just stayed there looking at me. A few seconds later I couldn’t take it anymore and literally threw the fly away from me. It paused in midair and resumed flight … right back toward me.

It was about that then that I truly started freaking the fuck out. I will admit it right now: I threw a couple punches. Did I land any? Well, no. But I did show good form.

After a few dozen jabs resulting with zero success, I reached for the first thing in sight on my desk—a bottle of body spray. Now, at the time it seemed like the most logical choice of weaponry. What fly could withstand the might force of Fresh Blue Musk?

The answer to the above question is: NO FLY.

NO FLY AT ALL, BABY.

Keeping this in mind, I raised the bottle of body spray and gleefully pressed my finger down on the trigger—and it just may have worked, if it had actually murdered a bunch of insects like its intended use, rather than what it really did, which was eject a burst of foul mist right into my mouth.

I dropped the bottle and immediately started gagging.

Fly force fields! my mind screamed, until realizing that I had simply been holding the bottle backwards. Too late to try again, though. They were already swarming me and I needed to step my game up.

“I know!” I yelled to the flies. “WHO WANTS TO TASTE SOME FEBREEZE?”

I jumped up from my chair, plugged my A Christmas Story leg lamp in, and lunged for my closet to scavenge a can of Hawaiian Scented Febreeze. With a grin akin to insanity, I spun around with the can raised over my head, ready to kill every last one of them.

But they had vanished.

Just like that … gone. Or so I thought. A few moments later I was once again greeted with the hellish droning of a million (or maybe just three) flies raping my leg lamp; thrusting their tiny bodies against its glorious bulb.

“YOU LEAVE THAT LEG ALONE!” I screamed, and sprung forward with the can of Febreeze. I slammed my finger down on the trigger and immediately unleashed a toxic cloud of Hawaiian poison against my lamp. The flies tried to flee, but it was too late. I had them all in my radar now. They were not going to get away from me.

After about five minutes of constant spraying, I finally relented and sat down to take a break. Fly murdering is some tiring work, let me tell you. I noticed right off the bat there was a fly laying in the middle of my room, collapsed on its back with its little pathetic fly feet sticking up.

One down.

I spotted another one not too far away. Still alive, but crippled severely. It was just crawling on the floor, slowly and desperately. I rose from my chair and approached it. At first, I did nothing but watch. It was almost adorable, how it thought it could actually survive this night.

SURVIVAL WAS NO LONGER AN OPTION.

Not at this point. They have driven me way too far over the edge. I backed up to my desk, fumbling for the can of Febreeze again. ‘Anna was still watching the movie, throwing the odd “You’ve lost your mind” remark over her shoulder here and there. Clearly she was fly-proof or something, I don’t know. Maybe she was a double-agent and had been working with the bugs all along. I’ll have to save that investigation for another day, though.

I walked back toward the crippled fly no longer thinking like a normal human being. I closed in on the bug from above, bringing the can of Febreeze mere inches from its body, and … and … I blacked out. When I came to, there was the biggest puddle of air freshener on my floor, and the fly was floating in the middle of it. Somehow, in my midst of madness, I recorded a video of my crimes. I still can’t bring myself to watch it all the way through. It’s just … it’s just too much.

I sat back down on my chair, completely dazed. The can of Febreeze was shaking in my grasp. What had I done? This … this was unspeakable!

“WHAT AM I?” I cried out.

“A murder-crazed lunatic,” ‘Anna helpfully suggested.

“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Yup.”

I looked around, taking in the scene that I had created. It was horrible. It was inexcusable. It was utterly insa—

There was another one.

I spotted it on the other side of my room, next to my closet doors. It was on the floor, just … staring at me. To the average eye, it would have just seemed dead, but my 18th sense (fly-death detection, respectively) was able to observe perfectly well that the fly was still alive.

“I’ll be back,” I said.

“Whatever,” ‘Anna said.

I approached the fly and knelt down. We locked eyes for a long time, sharing a moment of total clarity. I understood then that those two other flies had been this fly’s parents, and now it had nowhere to go. It would have to drift among the world alone for the entirety of its last 24 hours of existence.

What kind of monster was I?

Answer: the fly massacring kind.

I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger on the Febreeze. A minute later, the can was empty, the fly had joined its parents, and my room smelled absolutely fabulous. I returned to my chair and told ‘Anna the job was done.

“Dude, the police will be here any minute,” she said. “You better start the crime scene investigation for them to get on their good side or they’re totally going to arrest you and probably rape you.”

“Oh,” I said, debating the chances of this actually happening. I decided it was very, very likely. “Good think.”

“Whatever.”

So that’s just what I did.

 

It did indeed save an arrest and possible rape, so for that I was thankful. As the police wrapped up the corpses and carried them away to the fly morgue, one of the detectives approached us for questioning. He wore a dark pair of sunglasses. Also, he was a spider.

After he was done with the initial questions, the spider detective said, “I am not sure you are aware of this, but by this massacre you have probably enraged the  fly population of the whole world. They are going to be bugging for you.”

“I know,” I said weakly.

“They’re totally going to kill him,” ‘Anna agreed.

“Probably,” the detective nodded. “Have you considered witness protection?”

“Your face is a witness protection,” I said.

“What?” the detective said.

“Nothing. I’m not leaving anywhere. I’m not afraid of any flies.”

“Yes you are,” ‘Anna said.

“SHUT UP, ‘ANNA!”

“He totally is,” she said.

“Yeah.” The detective nodded. “I can see that.”

The spider detective sighed and looked back at the chalked outlines of the fly corpses. He shook his head tiredly.

“You know, a simple scare-spider would have prevented all of this.”

“Dammit!” I said.

“Oh well,” he said. “It’s a good thing they weren’t prepared for … CSFly!”

“What?”