The fly comes and sits first on the book on the little table beside me. He wanders around and seems to be observing me.
Tentatively he hops over onto the edge of the laptop, paces up and down over the various spaces on the laptop and all over the screen. He is watching me to see if I will hit him.
He’s no trouble to me and I leave him alone.
Emboldened, he comes to sit on my forearm, tickling as he walks over the fine hairs. A weird little shiver goes up my spine.
I continue to work alongside my small companion, and as long as he stays away from exploring my typing fingertips we get along just fine. Typing is more of an annoyance to him than to me as his footholds are constantly shifting and there’s a certain amount of danger to typing fingers when you’re as little as a fly… well, he gets the message quickly enough and retreats to my wrists or alternately he gets annoyed with me and decides to return to the screen.
The screen isn’t as interesting, though, so he’ll always come back.
We’ve spent whole nights that way.
Other times we’ve been in a control room and he’s retreated back to the safety of my wrist after discovering the hard way the other inhabitants of the room are far less hospitable and seek to squash him.
I seem to understand he means no harm and is just curious. Who knows what all he understands about me, having spent long hours observing me work and write. Probably he knows too much about me.
At home or at the studio, if you see a little fly buzzing about and I’m there, leave him alone. He’s one of my friends.
