My Dear Fly

My Dear Fly, I do so want to co-exist with you, but you’re making it terribly difficult. It seems that you won’t take no for an answer, which leaves me wondering what question you have, in fact, up your sleeve (forgive the linguistic laziness - I’m well aware that flies don’t have sleeves). It feels like wherever I go, you find me. There I’ll be, minding my own business (most certainly nothing to interest a fly), and lo and behold, there you’ll be, loping languorously along on a thin, invisible thread. I’ve lashed out, I admit it. Swatted this way and that with a gargantuan, flabby appendage, knowing (as all would-be insect swatters do) that my impetuous physicality is all in vain. I’ve blown gales of CO2 your way, and watched you recede into the distance, heard your tiny, tragic scream fading swiftly into nothingness. But it simply won’t work. Here you are again, a knowing grin on your face (if you have so many eyes, does that mean you have so many faces?). It seems that we’re destined to dance together, and I suspect that you know it better than me. Perhaps you are me. Perhaps you’re the me who came back as a fly because another me kept swatting at you, and here I am, trying to tell myself to learn my lesson. We’ve been here before. And soon you’ll be the swatty, sweaty, gusty me, and I’ll be the buzzy, drifty, unbotheredy me, and we’ll take up our dance, follow our steps, while away our karmic hours.

Here you are again. Go right ahead. I think I’ve changed my mind. You’re not so bad after all.

P.S. Sorry for accidentally squishing you after writing this. I hope you’ve escaped samsara.

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In Praise of Deviation and Surprise

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Centrifugal Apotheosis: Allan Holdsworth’s Fluid Dynamics