November 24th, 2009
Killing flies
For a few months I was besieged. Sitting here like an African baby with bluebottles dotted around my face, shclucking up the goo from my pores and eating the sugar on my lips. One day I couldn’t work up in the studio because of them between chasing them around and hosing the air with spray which makes me feel ill. I lost a whole days work because of 5 blue bottles.
They kept landing on my screen and nose and it’s impossible to concentrate. And worst of all was my daily visit by El Gordo, this massive humming bird/hornet nearly two inches long that would swoop in with a dentist drill like shrill and I swear to God more often than not I’d let out a scream.
Even by Spanish standards it has been a bad year for flies. The tiny increase in global temperature has made insects larger and live longer. They’re loving it.
But like Jennifer Lopez in Enough, I had had…enough. And I took the war down to my level. First weapon was the good old fashioned flame thrower. I had promised myself I would never use it again after nearly blinding a girl but I need it. I waited in the centre of the room, poised to strike and as they swooped down…
I feel guilty for enjoying it but I do. I torched around twenty one week, some while sitting down from 4 feet away. Next was the sonic boom. I saw her nephew catching them with his hands and I was just too slow to use that method, even when I calculated how far ahead to strike, half of the time I’d miss. Then I realised that if you clap your hands together really hard on front of them it creates a little shockwave that stuns them enough to try again. WHAMMMO! WHAMMO! SQUISH!!
One day I boomed one so hard that it’s wings fell off, turning it into a ‘walk’ rather than a fly. I probably skewered him on a toothpick to finish him. Little bastards. She hates fly paper so I can’t use that but we bought these little pink granules that you leave out in a tray for them and they eat it. It drives them mental, they just start spinning on they’re back at such a speed all you can see is a fuzzy grey globe.
I stand on them. And I start spinning around too. No, they squish.
So within six months of living here I have earned my stripes. Never again will I be held hostage by these flies. But I have a bad feeling the ants that I drove out a few months ago are regrouping and next Summer will be Armageddon.
