The house fly

Musca Domestica is the zoological name given to the common house fly. The term seems to indicate that the fly was adopted by humans. But it is the fly that has adopted our houses for its living. I understand that the house fly is capable of long flights of up to 4-5 kms. So perhaps the fly has many homes and it keeps changing its residence often. 

One morning a fly decided to visit my house resulting in a war between self and the fly. The first indication as to its presence was when it landed on my nose directly after a long flight (perhaps). I can understand that it is tired from the long flight and needed to rest. But my reaction could not be helped. It was swift and the goal was to swat the fly and possibly kill it. That it resulted in a broken nose and scalded skin was another matter. Apparently my reflex reaction overrode several objections from the thinking part of my brain- such as 'Please do not do it. There is a cup in your hand- it can hurt your nose. The cup has hot coffee- it can burn your face'. The fly however flew away guffawing along the way. This time it made a gentle landing on the sandwich I made for my breakfast. I was busy cleaning myself up and returned to find the fly sharing my breakfast. It is strange that the  housefly should have liking towards human's food as well as excreta and does not mind giving a free lift to other organisms back and forth from one substrate to another. With all this in mind I threw away the sandwich. With hunger in my stomach and a burning face (from hot coffee and anger in that order), I declared a full scale war on the fly. 

A rolled news paper failed to work as a weapon. One could see the fly enjoying the breeze caused by the draught of the air before flying off. While I am busy preparing the weapon again, the fly teased me by singing in my ear - 'Buzzzz' and gently caressing my ear lobule. With difficulty I stopped myself from banging on my ear (the memories of broken nose and scalding coffee served as timely reminders of potential sequelae of such an action). 

The fly has now pushed me too far. Now I decided to come out with all guns blazing. I pulled out my electric insect killing racquet. A strong forehand (which can put Roger Federer to shame) was well executed but failed to make contact with the fly. This was followed by a back hand and a smash with similar results. Instead of the fly the racquet contacted many other objects and in the process broke a vase, toppled a painting and disrupted the electric net of the racquet- in that order. Thus I was forced to retire from my exhibition of aggressive tennis. Defeated I sat down and watched the fly sitting on the ceiling near a lamp. I am sure I can make out that the fly was rolling in laughter. 

Its ego was bloated and it looked at me with its compound eyes like a victor looking at the vanquished. That was however short lived when it was swept of its feet (all six feet) by the darting tongue of a lizard near by.  I thanked the lizard for making a meal of my tormentor. The  lizard flicked its tongue to say- 'No problem. All in a day's work'.