I stop at the post office and check the stamp machines in the lobby. Just as I hoped, there’s a wagging tongue of five three-cent stamps sticking out. I tear them free and put them in my pocket. Ever since the price of stamps went up, people usually leave the difference behind.

The girl behind the counter smiles and waves as I leave.

He doesn’t have three cents?

What the hell? I scratch my ears hard to see if the voice goes away. If I could scratch my ears with my foot, I would. I don’t understand. The headphones are around my wrist. The fly isn’t anywhere near her. And neither am I.

I go to the diner. Are there girls behind every counter? Do they grow them back there, just out of sight? Are there ten more girls behind the counters you can’t see yet only because they haven’t grown high enough for their heads to clear the register?

A girl with the pencil shaped like a tiny pool cue. I stare at it, hypnotized, every time she takes my order. I asked her about it once, but she ignored me. Tonight is no different.

“Waitress, there is a fly in my soup…”

She looks down at the fly tugging against its leash on my finger.

“…and I think the little bastard just lassoed me.”

She wanders away, a miraculous combination of expressions on her face that I didn’t think were possible.

I stop in the restroom on the way out. In the urinal, just above the line-of-fire, there’s a sticker that declares: “You hold in your hand the power to stop a rape!”

For a second I think the sign refers to the fly crawling across my knuckles, and I’m suddenly ashamed. Is it so wrong to be “the fly whisperer?”

When I’m zipping up, one headphone falls from my left ear and plops into the urinal. I sigh, pull the rest of the wires out of my shirt and toss them all in.

I stop at the garage to get air for my tires. It’s the only place in town where you don’t have to pay fifty cents to do this. The guy who owns the garage gives me a knowing smile and a wave. I wave back and accidentally bounce my fly off my forehead. He’s cool. Last time I was there he agreed with me that paying for air is “freaking ridiculous.”

I get out, tie the fly to the compressor, snake the hose, hit the button.

How fucking low do you have to be to steal air…c’mon.

Was that a girl’s voice? I thought it was all guys in that garage. A girl from one of my earlier stops? What kind of reception does this fly get, anyway?

I heard of someone stealing dirt once, only that was from a construction site and that shit ain’t cheap. But air? Nope. Never heard of anyone stealing air.

The compressor stops rumbling. My fly strains on its leash, then curls back to land on a coil of hose.

I’ve heard of people stealing water once, but that was during the war.

I throw the hose. 29 pounds will have to do.

Honestly, who the hell steals air…

I can’t contain my rage any longer. I yell at the shadows in the garage.

“Who the hell sells air?!”

Two mechanics slides out from under a cars and into the sunlight. They stand up and walk toward me, wiping grease from their fists, blowing sweat off their noses, staring at me like I’m nuts.

00:01:45:22 - fly factory revealed

Do you ever get the feeling someone is talking shit about you?

I stop at the video store to steal some DVD inserts. I do this because they really are good reading. Sure, sometimes you get a paragraph of summary or some decent production notes or an interview, but that’s not what I’m looking for. I steal the inserts because I like to read the chapter titles. It’s like a whole movie in ten seconds. The chapter titles tell you all you need to know.

I grab a random one to prove my point. Okay, not so random:

Sharks With Guns

1. Love on a lifeboat
2. Sharks can’t use tools
3. Are you gonna eat that?
4. Dolphins are not our friends!
5. Bringing a shark to a gun fight
6. Shark factory revealed!
7. Duel to the deaf
8. Quitting the Coast Guard

See? What are you missing from the story after you read that? It’s all there. The crisis, the love interest, the surprise ending. Didn’t someone once say there are really only three stories you can tell? A stranger comes to town, and a man goes on a journey? Man sort of talks to fly?

I study the box to the movie and snicker, as there’s no way that shark could hold that chainsaw, much less a gun. They don’t have any thumbs.

Now, that would be a scary movie. If they had thumbs, they could make a phone call. It wouldn’t have to bite anyone. Just show one shark whip out a phone and every asshole in the audience would start screaming their head off.

Could happen. I’ve seen more far-fetched things than that in a movie. One time, in the bathtub, my ex-girlfriend checked her phone underwater so I couldn’t see who called her. I figured she’d ruined it, but it turned out the phone worked fine when I blew the bubbles off of it later that night to check that number she was hiding.

I slip some DVD booklets into my sleeves then go up to the counter and grab one of those free internet CDs. She is up there, and I see a strange light flickering in her eyes, and I realize the girl is watching something under the register with the volume turned down. When did she sneak a TV in here?

Suddenly I have to know what movie she’s watching. Is she watching something she’s not supposed to? Why else would she have the volume down like that?

On the way out, I finally see what it is. A security monitor. She was watching me steal those inserts the entire time. I can see myself in the corner of her screen, standing by the door, hunched and alone, looking over her shoulder, guilty as hell, green as the sunset.

Sitting in the car with my hands on the steering wheel my heart jumps. The fly is dangling on the hair like a suicide. I turn on the air-conditioning, open all the vents, and hold it in front of the cold air. It starts to climb back up its leash like a spider. It’s moving slow, but it’s still alive. I realize that every time I hide the fly, it starts to die.

Sounds like a children’s rhyme, doesn’t it?

I have to get home. Or get it to the bathroom. Or a restroom. You ever notice how cold the water in a toilet is? Even on the hottest day? Even if you know what’s been in there, it’s got to be tempting to swim in it. For a bug, I mean.

I drive fast, checking the size of the gas stations, trying to gauge whether they’re big enough for a public toilet. I glance down at the fly and see it slump on the string and swing from the hair like a pendulum. I slam on the brakes and make a hard right into the smallest gas station I’ve ever seen.

I ask the third-grader behind the counter if they have a restroom. He says no and turns back to counting the candy bars. In desperation, I hold up my hand with the limp fly swinging from my finger.

“Dude, my fly needs to drink from a toilet fast or it’s going to die.”

The kid smiles over a huge piece of gum and stares at me for 13…14…15 seconds. Then he points to the door behind the beer. “Hurry up.”

Unfuckingbelievable. Guess he’s seen stranger things than this.

Inside the bathroom, I’m assaulted by a stench worse than any outhouse. I walk over to the toilet and cautiously lift the lid. The water is clear as a mountain spring. I carefully lower my hand until the fly’s head just breaks the surface. I think about the part of the buddy-cop movie right around the second act where the drunk partner has to get revived by the wise-cracking partner, who shoves his face in the toilet. I’m much more gentle than that.

And it works. The fly starts to activate, cranking its legs over its head to clean itself off. I smile. It looks like it’s playing a tiny air guitar. No, it would need thumbs to do that.

Back in the car, I wonder how many people would believe I’m actually worried about this fly. I try to imagine myself in the waiting room at the veterinarian. I’d be the only person that a kid with a sick hermit crab could feel good laughing at. I watch it perched on the radio knob, cleaning its wings.

I’ve spent more time worrying about this fly than I worried about my ex-girlfriend. Even when she had to get her appendix out. I mess with my stereo.

Equalizer. That’s a good word.

Suddenly I understand something. It just seems like I care about the fly more than her, but if you were to line them up against the wall and put a little pencil mark over their heads, you’d find that actually my feelings about the fly and her are exactly the same. And it’s not that I think more of a fly. It’s just that, the more I find out about human beings, and the more I listen to their voices when they don’t think anyone can hear, the less I think of them.

00:01:58:19 - ears are burning

One time I told her I was going to invent a phone that, instead of ringing, released a swarm of bees instead. I said it would guarantee she would answer the thing every time I needed her to. She didn’t understand what the hell I was talking about. I think she thought I was talking about some special ringtone. I said, “okay, listen, how about just three small bees, just enough of a scare to buzz around your ears and make you swat the air in a panic every single time I called you?” She had no answer to that.

I walk out of the bathroom, and I see she was reading that same magazine again, the one with the prescription label with my ex-girlfriend’s name on it. I even told her how she used to snort painkillers off those very same pages. You’d think that alone would make her not want to read it. I used to try to get a letter published in one of her magazines so she’d stumble across my name.

Wait, did I say “prescription” earlier? Because that is exactly what I meant.

The speaker suddenly starts popping again.

Shit fuck shit. I pull the cords on everything. I hate the wiring in this house. It eventually destroys everything. I hear water running in the sink, and I figure she’s going to be in there awhile. She does that sometimes. Runs the sink so I can’t hear. Like I’m really listening to hear her pissing. Suddenly I remember something, and I quickly crawl to my box of old cassette tapes rotting in the corner. It’s my worst, last pair of headphones. Huge ratty ones from the ‘80s that cover your entire friggin’ head. I hesitate to put them on. My headphones are getting bigger and bigger as I seem to be sliding further back down the headphone-evolutionary ladder. Once I’m holding them in my hands and blowing the dust and insect shells off the foam, I realize they’re older than I thought.

They’re from the ‘70s, not the ‘80s, and they’re the only thing left of my mom. One time, she came up to me and put these over my ears, and I was pouting about something, so I didn’t say anything, didn’t even look up, but I didn’t take them off my ears either. And I still can’t remember the song she wanted me to hear or why she wanted me to hear it. Maybe there was something funny in the song? Maybe the lyrics meant something to her? Maybe she thought it was my favorite band? I can’t remember. I was too busy ignoring her. And now, I’ll never know what it was because I just sat there, arms crossed, mad about something stupid I can’t remember, frowning until the song was over and she finally walked away.

The wind blows the dead fly around on its string. My ring finger is white from lack of circulation. I unwrap the leash from my skin, waiting for the blood flow to return and paint the white knuckle red again. I’m amazed at how strong her hair was.

The strange thing is, when I think back to it, I could have sworn I was outside, sitting with crossed legs and crossed arms under a tree when she walked up and put these over my ears. The cord couldn’t have reached that far, could it?

It’s true that the bathroom is the last place where the remains of a relationship will linger. Is it all those half-empty bottles and soaps. Or is it just hairs around the toilet?

00:02:00:07 - end credits and ironic theme music

The next day I finally take out the trash. Not a second too late, either. I can see a box of sweet-and-sour chicken moving down there, and suddenly that fly ain’t such a miracle anymore because I can see at least three more green-eyed flies bouncing around in the bag with their snouts dipping in and out of a month of our scraps. My grandpa used to say that tiny fish would appear in a mud puddle if it sits undisturbed long enough. Not true. Those were mosquitoes. You know how they say the bathroom is the last place your girlfriend exists? I meant the garbage.

I take out the trash. Then I keep walking past the dumpster to throw my headphones into the river before I change my mind.

It’s one of those rivers that looks good from a distance. Then you’re standing next to it and you catch a smell of what’s been dumped in there for years. Wasn’t this the river that caught on fire because of the pollution? You’d think my toilet would have ignited from all the cigarettes she flicked in it. Is this the river where that little boy swore he saw the shark?

The headphones bob along, riding the brown waves, then something under the water takes a couple bites and finally pulls them down. There’s a girl standing next to me when I turn around.

“You know what you looked like to me just then?” she asks. “You looked like the last scene of a movie. The part where the sheriff throws away his badge.”

“Hold out your hand,” I tell her, not expecting her to. When she uncurls her fingers for me, I expect something to fly away.

“What’s your name?”

“Michelle. But I go by ‘Chelle, ‘shell.’”

“Of course you do. I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

“I live in your building.”

“Have you ever had problems with your wiring?”

“No,” she laughs. “Have you?”

“All the time.”

“You should get a surge protector. Seriously. I have three of them.”

I stare for seven…eight…nine seconds. Then I write my phone number in her hand. Just for laughs I draw a fly underneath it.

“Sorry, I like drawing flies.”

“I know. They’re easy to make. Like a smiley face. You know why everyone draws smiley faces? Because there are less than five lines you need before you can recognize it.”

“I believe it.”

I hear the buzzing sound again, and I know what it is before she even pulls it out. She smiles an apology and presses the phone deep into her face, quickly walking away before she starts talking.

I walk off in the opposite direction to give her some privacy. I think of my phone number and the fly I drew on her skin, and I cup my hand around my ear like a seashell. Even when she’s miles away, even when her head and her hand are the only things visible above the waves smacking my head and filling my nostrils, I still keep my hand over my ear, and I can still hear every word of her conversation like she’s swimming right next to me. Until I pull her under.