If angels are sent here to guide us, and devils to lead us into temptation, what, pray, is the purpose of fruit flies?
Do they exist merely to drive us insane? To make us question the existence of an all-knowing beneficent deity? Or do they, like reality TV “stars,” exist simply because in a universe of infinite possibility a spontaneously generated vexation is inevitable?
These thoughts swarm in my head as I’m sopping up the wine sprayed across the tablecloth, dripping through it to the floor below, staining my pants on the way. The fruit fly whose antic aerial maneuvers drove me to yet another hasty and ill-considered slap at the empty air, thus leading to this lavish spill, has since flitted on to riper fields. And I just want to know why.
Are fruit flies symbolic of the pointlessness of trying to rid the world of problems, when, it seems clear from the bludgeoning headlines, no sooner do we clean up one gosh-awful mess, or “wind-down” some bloody war, than two more spring, hydra-like, from the event horizon?
I don’t know. Maybe fruit flies have some purpose which, for reasons best known to the aforementioned all powerful deity, remain obscure to those of us cleaning up the spills and spoils. I shouldn’t complain. At least I have wine to spill. Maybe I’ve had more than my share. Could that be what that fruit fly is suggesting? What a nerve! I’ve a good mind to slap the hell out of that little pest! Here he comes again!
Crap. Could you pass the paper towels?