Ferris the Fly

Boris stared through the glass as the reggae music gently played in the background. There was something swimming there. On closer inspection he saw it was a fly, so he reached in and fished him out, and placed him on the table. His name was Ferris. He looked like he felt the same as Boris did, that is, like he had just been swimming in a glass of beer. It was a good feeling. He wondered if the fly had done it intentionally, as Boris effectively had. Maybe Ferris had the same problems as Boris, and maybe the diving into the beer was Ferris’s vain effort to end it all on a happy note. How similar they were. But it’s never easy. Here Ferris had done his best, and Boris had saved him, and was busy nursing him back to health. Today was not his day, he would live to face tomorrow too. And tomorrow nothing would have changed, the mountain of insurmountable problems would still be there. He felt more and more sorry for Ferris. He didn’t know the nature of his problems. Maybe he was battling to feed a large family. Maybe he had just found out about a couple of thousand extra illegitimate children. Maybe he had cheated on his wife for the first time, or worse, she had cheated on him. Maybe he had just found out his last batch of children weren’t really his. Just the thought of all that made Boris more sorry for poor Ferris, so much so, that he had almost forgotten his own mountainous problems. He had a closer loom at Ferris, who was busy wiping his wings with his back legs, in an effort to remove some of the beer and dry them. He was looking decidedly more healthy than a few minutes ago, when he had looked partically drowned, with drooping wings and lying flat on the table, unmoving. Boris had thought then he might not make it, but bit by bit he had started moving various appendages. Now he was looking very much alive, and it was clear he was going to mke it after all. His head twisted as he wiped his huge eyes. It was hard to say what he had been trying to deal wth in hislife , You couldn’t tell much by looking at him, he looked like any other fly. But it was like that, no one let anyone else see the load they had to bear. Boris knew he himself looked like any other drunk person in the bar, no one saw or cared about what his problems were. It was probably for the best, there most likely wasn’t much the other flies could do for Ferris, even if they had known. Besides, they all had their problems to cope with. It was just that some, like Ferris, couldn’t cope. He didn’t want to see his mountain of problems topple over, as they inevitably would. Some would call Ferris a coward. Some would call him brave. But in fact, when you are one of more than 7 b of your species on earth, what does it matter? Many just like Ferris died every day, ften in accidents. They might fall by mistake into cooking pots, or get eaten by bords, or most likely swatted or poisoned by humans. Boris could tell by his size that Ferris wasn’t particularly young, and who cared what happened to the old and spent members of your population? They might even secretly welcome his death, more food, less compettion for women. It was too much for Boris. It seemed Ferris solution might not be wrong. It wasn’t right, but it was definitely a solution. And probably the only solution. Certainly the only solution acceptable to ferris, and the only one with certaintly of success. Boris made up his mind, and before ferris was fully functional again, but still very, very drunk, he took the glass and squashed him.