I'll Die with the Black Fly Picking my Bones

"What a dust do I raise!" says the Fly, "upon the Coach-wheel?"
-- Laurentius Abstemius, ~1492.

It began a few weeks ago. This perfectly sealed environment, with her barred windows and industrial air conditioning, was breached by a fly.

"In October?" I bellowed at nobody in particular. The fly looked at me inquisitively and threw up on my sandwich.

Now, we put up with this irritation in the summer when our wits are dulled and our armpits are clammy. But in late autumn, it feels like a massive violation of nature and privacy. Like opening a bag of foiled-wrapped crisps to discover a tiny man inside indulging in a furtive fart in the assumption that nobody is looking.

Since then, the problem has worsened to the extent that we appear to be on some kind of lockdown. Leaving a door open is now punishable by death, and there are rumours of as many as three flies in the kitchen. The Book of Revelations is a goddamn fairy story compared to this plague.

What is required is some kind of fly trap, and I am armed with ideas.

1. Fly Paper. A traditional method in which we would leave copies of the Daily Mail lying around. The fly comes in, sees the paper and starts to read it. Whilst the fly is distracted, we swat the bastard. This method works primarily because flies are attracted to shit.

2. The Honey Trap. We sellotape a picture of a nice, juicy steak to the wall, and when the fly lands on the picture, we hurl a jar of honey at it.

3. The Mousetrap. Instead of using cheese, we use a freshly-laid cowpat as bait. The main drawback with this idea is that we would need a herd of cows to obtain the cowpats. Once the flies were gone we would be stuck with swarms of cows. And if you have ever tried swatting one of them, you'll know that nothing less than a mattress tied to a fireman's pole will do. And then you're stuck with firemen. The only thing they're scared of is flies, and so the cycle repeats.

4. Julia Sarpong. Even flies have some taste.

The bitterest pill to swallow is that they appear to operate a dead man's shoes policy. No sooner as one fly is dead, another turns up ten minutes later. As if the sons of bitches were operating a timeshare, or something.

"Shit! Did you feel that, squadron leader? A disturbance in the force…"

"Hell yeah, I felt it. Sons of bitches. Fly down! Fly down! Get another fly in there at once! And don't forget to tell him that once inside he must avoid all obvious exits, keep landing confusingly on the ceiling and attempt to climb into people's earholes at every opportunity."

"Ten-four, squadron leader. And tell whoever goes that it's tuna sandwich day in the office, so if you puke on the food nobody will notice."

Well…perhaps. For now, though, we are stuck with the world's worst fly spray, a kitchen we can't use in case we are skeletonised by the three fly swarm, and a rabid fear that our foods will be vomited on when our backs are turned. (Although that started happening before the flies arrived, but that's not for now).

Scientifically speaking, flies could rule the world, you know. They're just lazy.