by Drosophilia melanogaster

A small market on a Pacific Island, late February of the year 2022…

Small, delicate, flitting about, a small fruit fly samples fresh fruit that sits – awaiting a hand to grasp it, to squeeze it, to carry it away from the bristle laden, sponge-like mouth of our friend. From mango to papya. From papya to guava. From guava to lilokoi, the fruit fly follows the trail of scents that lead it to possible ovipositing sites. The fly hovers on warm currents of air that waft off the street – waves that descend into a torrent of confusion as large beings mill about, testing the fruits the fly would much rather light upon. A multitude of odors flow along those currents as our friend the fly hovers about. Sweet, sour. Fruit, vegitable, meat. Sweat. The sickly sweet odor of man, one that so often leads a fly to sweet riches, fruits whose sole purpose – as far as our fruit fly friend is concerned, is to nurish their larvae. It’s attention is drawn past a stretch of cold air that confuses the fly, an area you would recognize as the cooler – milk that may still be fresh, cheese from 1,000’s of miles away, and containers of things we can’t explain – nor look appetizing. Our friend the fruit fly gives this area wide berth, for the cold air may bring it down. Past rectangular boxes with cryptic colors – one orange with a cartoonesque-looking human in blue suit and hat balanced precariously on the shelf’s edge, towards an opening in the rear of the store. The smell of overly ripeness wafts on the breeze that passes through the opening towards our friend. Here he finds an older gentleman, hair graying, slight of build – you’d recognize him as Koki Kojima, proprietor of the store and manager of the Aurora Borealis – though the fly would know of neither, as it’s just a fly with a simple, primal goal – to lay. Lazily the fly lands upon a sheet of paper at the edge of the table the human sits at, loud, windy noises emanating from the man we know as Koki – sounds we would recognize as heavy sighs. The fly is attracted to a brightly colored circle atop the paper – yellows, reds and blues, and it crawls along over words and numbers – things that are meaningless to the fly, but you might read as ‘2-years’ and ‘$1,200,000’ and ‘appreciate all you’ve done’. The older man reaches for the paper, and the fly lifts off, instinctually, before the old man’s hand touches the paper and lifts it to his eyes. Again he sighs, a hint of frustration embedded in it – frustration the fly can feel, but understand not. The fly sees, senses, tastes? a fresh mango, cut and laid on a plate to the man’s side and begins to move towards it, the urge to lay greater now. But as it approaches a tidal wave of air jostles the fly’s path – the old man looks up as he knows those violent waves as a large sound – a door that was slammed shut. As the fly’s path is disrupted, it notes the scent of another who stands in the shadows of a doorway. The fly lands upon the mango, and the men begin to converse. Tones low, not that it would matter to our eavesdropping fly who understands no spoken word and whose only interest in dropping is eggs upon the mango. But the fly understands raw emotion. It smells it, and here it smells a sudden shift in anger – in both men, but an anger whose roots seem vastly different. The fly lands upon the mango and sets it’s ovipositor out and into the flesh of the fruit. The older man lifts the paper upward and shakes it vigorously – an action that stirs the instinctual flight mechanism in the fly, despite it’s ‘compromising position’. The old man reaches to the table and picks up another sheet of paper – one that is stained in places with fingerprints of various fruits – stains and odors that distract our friend the fruit fly, and when the man throws it at the other, hidden in the shadows, the fly follows and as the paper lands upon the floor, so the fly lands upon the delictible hint of pineapple that covers a number the fly finds irrelevant, but that ‘$1,900,000’ figure would enrage the man hidden in the door way. This man steps into the light and we see him as younger – the fly could tell you this, by his smell, if the fly could talk, and you would see him as the brash, young GM of the Aurora Borealis. He bends to pick up the paper – our fruit fly once more in the air and flying back to the mango. The fly resumes the act of laying it’s eggs upon the mango as undualating waves of air – of sound, comes it’s way from the younger man. To a creature more evolved than our fly, one might see it as sarcastic laughter. Our fly continues laying it’s eggs along the soft tissue of the mango as a projectile bounces in front of, and over, the plate holding the mango and off it goes, rapidly flying off at an angle perpendicular to the projectile – nature’s instincts being particularly efficient in this instance. The fly hovers over the scene for a moment, gazing at the mango, perhaps deciding if it has the need to lay more, and as it does, the older man bends over to pick up the projectile – you’d recognize it as a crumpled up sheet of paper. He sits and calmly looks at the younger man, and as the fly decides it’s time here is finished – if flies are capable of such decisions, it departs as the old man utters words the fly will never understand, “You can go ahead and manage the team yourself if you don’t like the deal…”