Sometime in mid-May…

Musca domestica sees much but understands little — *Musca domestica* sees much but understands little

It is a quiet night in the lovely Lower Chautauqua neighborhood of Boulder, Colorado. The moon shines brightly on this unseasonably warm evening. Even at this late hour, some homes still have lights burning. One home, surrounded by many ready-to-bloom flowers, daffodils, paper whites and iris, has but one light on and an open window.

We focus on a simple fly, Musca domestica, a common housefly lazily floating through the window. It’s initially attracted to the lamp on a desk, circling its warmth. Upon the table is a picture of three men, one very old and the other two young. One smiles broadly and the other with pursed lips. Lying next to the framed image is a pair of keys and a folded sheet of paper with the large initials on it: ACY. Through the fly’s multi-lensed eye, it sees a being, large and sleepy, sitting in front of a flashing box. Sound emitting from the box describes some person still missing. It’s a fly and only can think of sunlight radiating down on it as it tries to comprehend the name. The being chuckles at this report, sitting up and grabbing a bottle, taking a deep drink of some mysterious liquid whose odor is enticing to the fly, and so it buzzes over to investigate.

As it saunters across the room, the fly passes many photographs on the wall. It knows not who these photos are, but we recognize them as the being it now approaches. One picture is this creature standing and shaking hands with Matt Higgins, whom we also recognize as the GM of the San Antonio Calzones of Laredo. A second picture shows this being sitting at a bar with a figure you’d recognize as Bill Shatner of Kentucky. Each of these photos appears to be moments of happiness, such as the picture of Jeff Dudas, Morris Cooley and this one, Chris Rodriguez. But behind the happiness that the average person would see, the fly sees a hidden anger in the eyes of this being; a resentment.

The fly moves closer, and as it does it passes a fireplace, wood stacked within and ready to burn, but not on this warm evening. High up on the mantel is a large piece of metal; a trophy, “The Rodriguez Cup” it reads to those who can; but not the fly. Behind it is a picture of many humans, though the fly does recognize this being as being human. Many humans, some partially clothed in sky blue, white stuff flying about. If you were to ask the creature sitting in front of the talking box, you would learn that this was from the night Aurora clinched their first Cup: a joyous Chris Weaver and John Roach pouring something over the head of someone, someone who looks like the man in front of the fly. To our fly here, he feels only joy within those of the photograph.

On the table in front of the being is a small device, not unlike the larger box, lit up brightly with many small, white boxes with black lines in them. Flies, of course, don’t read, but would his eyes be human, it would read in one box a message from “ALFERO_U” asking, “What should we do?” Another larger box would read in part, “…may buy in, but it’ll cost you. I wanted this for other reasons, but maybe we could swing a deal. Those gyms may be handy as a means of distribution. My friends here would go for that. Just remember, the Yankees were worth $1 billion before they went out of business. What’s Aurora worth? What are the gems worth? We’re talking about a lot of…”

The fly may not know it, but someone is none too fond of GM Will Topham

As the fly continues its path, we find a book on a side table, bookmarked somewhere amongst its pages. The words mean nothing, but a large “King” is on the cover, and “Pet”, followed by something we would surly recognize as misspelled. Once more the fly is attracted to the odor of the liquid in the bottle, and so it turns and moves towards it. It approaches eagerly – the smell is intoxicating – when a large object sweeps through the air and strikes the fly, sending it head over tarsus and onto the floor, where it lands on a paper with many small words and pictures. This paper is wrinkled, and if the fly knew what it was looking at it would realize that it had been written and drawn on.

As the fly moves on and out the window it came in, we are left knowing what the fly did not; that the words written on the paper were, “What is he doing? Pinto?”