Wall Flies & Flowers Ch 1 ~A Fly on the Glass~ As with all #life and death situations, mine began with a silly thought that turned into a stupid idea. I lay flat on my back in bed because I was tired. I was exhausted as well, which any intelligent person will tell you is utterly different from being tired. Tiredness can be cured by sleep. Exhaustion can only be solved by lazy hours with yourself. But lazy introverted hours are hard to come by when taking a vacation at a cousins' house. Notice the lovely punctuation on the word cousin because there are four of them. All in the same house. Between the four-wheeling and hiking and running errands with the Aunt and Uncle, my exhaustion increased. I could literally feel the skin under my eyes sag from perpetual effort. Then came the buzzing. My cousins' house exists deep in the Alaskan Woods near Palmer, not that you really care where I am. The point is that the house has many flying insects such as the fly on the window. Like all trapped flying insects, this fly was throwing itself into the impenetrable window pane. I've always found these attempts at escape ironic because repeated window collisions turn into insect homicide. Not suicide of course. The poor bugs can't even figure out glass, let alone consciously cause their own deaths. Usually I would just leave the creature to their fate, circle of #life and all that jazz. But the constant tapping was bothersome and made it hard to concentrate in my exhausted, delirious state. I stood near the fly as it madly buzzed around, trying to gauge its size. This one was particularly small for a fly. Not a gnat but not your typical house fly either. I pulled out a tissue from the box on the night stand, bundled it up in my hand and began to mentally prepare myself for the kill. I would usually let this insect be, but death seemed like mercy to the doomed creature. I tracked the bug with my eyes for a few seconds then struck out, nailing the fly between my tissue and the window. Pinching my fingers together I crunched the #life out of the fly, then opened the tissue to inspect my work. The tissue was clean and empty of fly guts. The buzzing and glass tapping stared. I must have missed, so I tried again. Watch fly, attack, crunch. I pinned the fly and it let out a scream.