The Happy Marriage

Obsessive, unsettling, amusing, diabolical. I am a fly. Restless and resolute. Gluttonous and stubborn. A fly, just a worthless fly. To be unceremoniously hunted down, swatted, and crushed when caught. Something to be despised, but also feared. There’s nothing nice about flies. Nothing to be proud of either. Unlike the queen bee. Black, gray, shameless, and unscrupulous. Yet it’s free, and it amuses itself with those who chase after it. Doesn’t care about anything. Doesn’t have a house, or belong to any country. Arrives on the back of an evil wind and just settles there without asking anyone’s permission. It’s only discouraged by the rain or the cold. It dares to do whatever it likes. It flies into fashionable salons, mosques, and alcoves, sneaking its way into the most intimate and secret spaces: bathroom cabinets, kitchens, laundry rooms, following its instincts wherever they lead it. It disturbs the dead, and bites into their lifeless flesh, then wanders off somewhere else. It bites into a baby’s soft skin, causing it to swell up. It goes wherever it likes and is unstoppable. Free and stubborn. I’m going to be a fly this morning. It’ll amuse me. I’ll enjoy being fearless and shameless. I’m going to become a fly in order to annoy my husband. I’m very good at that. I’m happy whenever I can settle on his nose and watch him being unable to swat me away. I giggle and cling to him. I tickle him, make him itch, and make his life hellish. I like that. A small kind of revenge. Let’s put it this way: a taste of what’s in store for him.

It’s crazy how men are so afraid of being alone. What a sin! I’m not afraid of being alone. I even go to the length of creating that solitude and allowing it to reign. It doesn’t make me neurotic. I’m just like a fly, I’m independent-minded and don’t like compromises. My man thought I was rigid. He’s certainly right, but I don’t like that word. It reminds me of death. As for solitude, I get along with it just fine. There’s no need to whine about it to other people, people who are probably all too happy to despise you. I am solitude. Solitude is the fly that takes its time and refuses to budge. I am the solitude that crawls under my man’s skin. I’ve stopped calling him that. He’s never been “my” man, but has instead always belonged to other women, starting with his mother and those two sisters of his, both of whom are witches.