Killing a Southern Indiana Farm Fly requires a sense of coordination usually found amongst Olympic gymnasts. When cornered with a rolled up magazine or gym shoe, the traditional housefly is an achievable get for even the most fatally graceless amongst us. Farm Flies, on the other hand, are a breed unto their own.
At roughly the size of a mid-level sedan, this unsavory pest takes on an identity of Lady GaGa sized proportions with its mammoth wingspan and unbreakably stubborn will. Like Kamikaze pilots, these pests lack any form of self-preservation. They have but one goal: annoy the enemy to the point of insanity.
Traditional houseflies seem to have developed the illusive sense of mortality these flying Volkswagens are so hell-bent on destroying. Shoo a normal housefly away a few times, and he eventually recognizes the mortal danger of flailing newspaper pages. After years of family members being taken down in their prime, the common housefly has evolved, cherishing avoidance as an invaluable virtue.
This is not true of Farm Flies, as they blatantly disregard the apprehension of their cousins with relentless energy. No matter how close one comes to annihilating one of these corn-fed monsters, it will only renew their resolve to attack. It is a game of mental endurance, to engage the Farm Fly, and I would like to think even cerebral heavyweights such as Albert Einstein or Carl Sagan would have had their asses handed to them by these persistent minions of insecticide.
It's not all the Devil's handiwork, though. To watch two flies attempting to mate is to watch the beauty (and simultaneous decimation) of aeronautical physics. They maneuver through the air with the precision of heat-seeking missiles, treating gravity as if it were merely a suggestion, rising high in the chewy summer air before tumbling downward through an invisible double helix. Trying to maintain visual contact on two flies while they’re going at it like a couple of Jersey Shore cast members is a lot like viewing a solar eclipse: although beautiful and awe inspiring, stare too long and you'll go blind.
Eventually, interest in reproduction wanes, and Farm Flies resume their usual baneful existence of buzzing loudly whilst nowhere in sight. This is perhaps the cruelest aspect of going to battle against the Farm Fly; they have mastered the art of teasing. The frustration of routinely coming within millimeters of a successful whacking is enough to cause the Pope to cast off his Godly robes in exchange for a blunt object and some under-the-breath cursing. It is a hunt that never ends, even in the event of a kill.
Never in my life have I cursed my unavoidable human size as much as when engaging the Farm Fly, and at 5’5, I have some experience with this particular contempt. Trying to recall the limited knowledge I have learned about hunting from listening to beer-fueled campfire tales of deathly excellence, I began to strategize in my quest for Farm Fly blood. I began to crouch down when skulking around the farm. I would inch forward, slowly and deliberately, hypnotized by the soft clak-clak of my sandals hitting my heels as I scoured the empty air, shovel in hand. Should anybody have witnessed me in these pursuits they would have surely thought I was hot on the trail of an escaped convict, or trying some new, hillbilly form of Tai Chi.
After bouts of unsuccessful hunting, I would begin to question my validity on this Earth. Each whiffed swing took with it a piece of my integrity. How dare I call myself a man, I would wonder when walking in from the fields, head hung low in disgust of the lack of splattered guts that should decorate my shovelhead. My thoughts would inevitably shift post-game, and entire evenings have gone unaccounted for due to imagining the many ways in which I would right my previous wrongs during the next hunt. The thrill of the pursuit had me in its vengeful claws, and I vowed to someday taste retribution.
At this juncture I have given up on traditional methods of fly-murdering as much of my efforts have been in vain, and am seriously considering petitioning the Department of Defense for a missile strike. At the very least, maybe they'd let me borrow a flamethrower.
Regardless of how many of these country-bred demons I kill there will always be more. In fact, since I began my killing spree, it seems like every time one goes down, fifteen more take its place. Summer in the Southern Indiana country is hot, sticky, and boring on the surface. But, take a closer look and one will find he is surrounded by the poetry of nature, and an epic battle for the survival of the fittest.
