Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask | Page 4

was utter bullshit.
* * *
There's nothing worse than seeing a fly bang itself against a wall again and again. You just *know* that something's gone horribly wrong in its little fly brain, all ten cells of it. I always wonder what drove it crazy -- a strangely shaped room, bad air, the longing for fly companions in a human-infested house. That last one I could have helped it with, I suppose. But who's to say that it was loneliness it suffered from?
I imagined that like a simple machine, the rubber band of its mind had snapped, but something kept spinning regardless.
I sat in my huge armchair and debated throwing the bug out the window (where it would surely freeze), or out the door (where it would annoy my roommates), or out of this astral plane (which would require vigorous and violent physical action).
I did nothing. I have a special rapport with bugs, even the crazy ones. I went back to my studying. I was reading about pheromones. They're easily some of my favourite things from the insect world. I was discovering that these smelly molecular messengers can communicate something as complex as "The queen bee is in the hive and all is well" -- when there was a knock on the door.
"The queen bee is in the hive and all is well," I called out, and Phil came in. He had a little smile on his face and he walked over to the window and looked out.
"Mind if I read in here?" Phil asked after a moment of watching the snow, waving a book called *Games Zen Masters Play* .
"Go ahead, see if I care," I said cheerily. "Have a seat on the bed. Not as comfy as this chair here, no siree, but..."
"Shaddap," muttered Phil, flipping open his book. He had seen the chair sitting out in our neighbour's garbage too -- he'd seen it first -- but hadn't taken it because he thought it smelled of urine. But the smell must have been coming from something else, because once in my room it smelled of nothing. Phil claimed otherwise, naturally. He had been so desperate for a chair ever since, that he had been offering a lawn chair to guests.
"Mmmm-m!" I said, wiggling my bum.
Phil said nothing, his big-eyebrowed Korean face looking calm as he read his book.
"Smells in here," he grunted after a few minutes.
"Smells of nothing but happy-bum-sitting-pleasure," I burbled. I turned the page to reveal a cross-section of a bee, illustrated in unlikely colours.
Another few minutes passed. "Urine."
"Sorry, no urine."
We were likely to spend the next few hours in this slow-motion argument. But my flying friend interceded.
"What the hell is wrong with that fly?!" said Phil, his teeth suddenly bared in frustration.
"Loony," I said.
"I'm gonna kill it."
"Don't kill it. It's a visitor."
Phil closed his book and started tracking the fly.
"Isn't there some zen game you can play? To make you clear your mind like the stream in a forest or something?"
"The only zen game I'm learning is how to shoot lasers from my eyes to fry stupid fly-loving white boys." Phil got up from the bed and held the book like a weapon. I leaped up from the chair and opened the door.
"Flee, fly, flee! The evil Asian's going to crush you!"
The fly, beyond hearing, bounced against the wall three more times and then *whack!* The book permanently united it with my wall.
"Aw, look at all that blood, Phil!"
There was a splotch almost an inch round on my white, non-glossy-paint wall. Phil looked at his book with amazement. He flicked the fly into my little garbage can. "There's a tremendous amount of blood. How could a fly have that much blood?"
"My wall... a testament to your barbarism." I was vaguely annoyed, but not enough to pretend I wasn't, which is what I did when I was *really* mad...
"It must have been drinking blood. That's why it was crazy... a poster will cover that up, hey? I'm sorry."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you. Another cover-up. No, people will know about this, Phil Lee. People will know about you."
He slunk out of the room. "Sorry."
I went back to my book.
* * *
I walked into Sok, stupidly. I usually go in only if Cass is there but I was walking in a daze, and once I was in, I was in. The cook had already nodded hello and as I considered leaving I had a daymare:
*The cook, young but working towards being one of those classic diner cooks with the stubble and extra flesh, says, "Hey Cass, your boyfriend came in."*
*"Who?" she'd say, already annoyed.*
*"Your boyfriend with the glasses and the books. He comes in, looks around and sees you're not here, then turns around and leaves."*
*"Ah, probably forgot he had a class to go to," she'd say with