The flies

When I was a boy
between seven and ten
Years old
I had a reoccurring problem.
Flies would fly
into my
ears.
And as bad as that
sounds
Think of it from
my perspective…
The first time, I was
standing on the front
porch of my
childhood home.
I looked to my
right
and saw a fly,
clear as a slow-motion
black bullet
heading my way.
And because I could
not have
conceived
that it could
happen,
I turned my head
forward.
And then
a
"FLUMP", noise
like a door closing
inside my
head.
And then-
Thebuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
How to explain
such a thing
to the people around
me?
I know that I
said,
"BUG IN MY EAR!!"
but why was
it
necessary
for me to have to say it
more than
Once?
And why was everyone so
calm?
I was taken upstairs to
the bathroom with
visions of the fly
burrowing deeper and
deeper into my
brain
and my mother trying to fish it
out with tweezers
or some other
eardrum puncturing
utensil.
But instead she turned my
head
sideways and
poured water into
my ear from
a glass.
And the insane buzzing
bubbled and
stopped.
She then turned my
bug-ear
floorward and
a warm flood of liquid
ran down my cheek and onto
the floor
the fly in the middle
of the puddle.
For the next several nights
I was plagued
by surreal nightmares. I slept on
my side
with a finger jammed in one ear
and the other ear buried in the pillow.
The sound of the pillowcase
crinkling Under my ear
a million bug eggs
falling out.
To think such an event is traumatic
is an understatement, so
when it happened
AGAIN
I felt that there bugs could smell
how scared I was.
The second bug
(a fly)
landed on my ear-lobe
and then
crawled into my ear!
Once more I was in a
panic!
I ran into the house
through the living room, into the kitchen
where my mother was
washing dishes.
She was calm.
Too calm for my liking
as she got a glass
Of water and
led me onto the back
porch.
I tilted my buzzing ear
skyward
She poured in the water.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
gloop gloop
A Sound of being under water
Bzz brzk-
…
And when I tilted my water
filled ear down
and the warm waxy water
flowed down my neck
I looked to the ground
at the puddle on
the porch-slats.
Water but
no FLY…
But I felt nothing in my
ear.
The bug must
have fallen
through the
Slats…
?
It made no sense.
Once was horrifying.
Twice was impossible.
So the third time…
I was climbing the big
oak tree in
my grandmother’s backyard
with my friend
Ben, when the
fun was inturrupted by
A loud flurping
Burzzzzszzzzzzzzzzzz…
I looked over at Ben
and said
calmly
"Excuse me a second. I got
a fly in my ear.”
With that, I haul
myself down from the tree
across the yard
into the house
past family
up the stairs
down the hallway and into
the bathroom.
The whole time
Brzzzz, brzzzzz, brz…
I turned on the sink faucet
tilted my head
and scooped water into
my ear. And listened
to the underwater sound
and the end of the buzzing.
I tilted my ear
floorward and
the water ran out.
The dead fly in a puddle of water
on the counter.
I examined it.
It was just a fly.
I went back outside.
Ben had left.
It was okay though.
Real men knew how to
go it alone.