Phil

            Little Timmy watched a group of flies flew around his room.  There wasn’t much to do, today. He had done everything he could think of, and was bored enough to find himself watching flies. He didn’t let this bother him, though. At 4 years old, he really didn’t think too much about what entertained him, as long as something did.  He let them fly around his head, land on his feet, fly over and investigate his toy box, and pretty much anything else the flies felt like doing. He didn’t chase them, swat at them, or tell them to go away. He was just fine with watching them.

            All of a sudden, as the flies swung close to him again, Timmy thought he heard a very small, quiet coughing fit, and moments after that, he actually saw one of the flies simply quit flying, and it fell from the group. What he thought he heard next made him curious if Momma had given him special milk today. From the flies’ direction, these sounds issued forth, and he had to concentrate very hard to hear them the whole time.

            “Oh God! Phil, Phil!!! You’re falling, Phil! YOU’RE FALLING, PHIL!!!”

            “What’s wrong with him? He was just fine a few seconds ago, I saw him flying with us. He was getting old, but not that old!”

            “Someone catch him! Dorace, you’re the fastest, get him!”

            Then, Timmy sat, mesmerized, as one of the flies flew faster than he had ever seen a fly fly. It raced down toward the falling fly (was it a fly when it was falling?), and caught who older kids probably would have assumed was Phil, if older kids had been present. Alas, only Timmy was in the room. He kept quiet, though, and kept watching.

            “Phil? What’s wrong? Why’d you fall?”

            “Wait, let’s set him down and take a look at him.”

            The flies all flew over to Timmy’s shoe and stood around the fallen fly.

            “Phil’s not answering guys. What do we do?”

            “He’s not moving, either.”

            “Wait, we can die?!  This happens to flies? I thought-“

            “Shut up, Fargo! Of course flies die, everything dies. No one said Phil died, anyway. He may just be sleeping.”

            “But he isn’t moving, and he isn’t talking. I heard him cough before he fell, didn’t y-“

            “Damn it, shut up, Fargo! If we wanted your opinion, one of us would say something like ‘Hey, Fargo, what do you think?’ Did anyone say that, Fargo?”

            Timmy was glad he wasn’t Fargo right now. This reminded him of the times he made his parents mad at him.  That didn’t happen while he was in his room, though. Fargo was in a bad spot, Timmy thought.

            “No, no one asked that, but everyone else was talking, so I thought-“

            “Ah, see? There’s the problem, you thought. What did we tell you about thinking? You start thinking foolish thoughts, like ‘Phil is dead’, or ‘It’s my turn to talk’. You see why we try not to let you think, Fargo. It’s irritating.”

            “Look at Phil! He is dead! This is what a dead fly looks like! He isn’t sleeping, he isn’t just taking a break, the poor fly just up and quit living. Deal with it! It’s not my fault this whole thing happened, just because I heard him hacking and you want to ignore it!” Timmy thought that was Fargo talking, but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see any mouths on the flies, so he couldn’t see which fly it was. It sounded like Fargo, though.

            “No! He’s going to be ok! You’ll see!” and this was followed by babbling in the same voice. The other flies sighed at the same time, took off, and left Timmy’s room forever. The one fly stayed with Phil until Timmy went to bed. When he got up, the fly and Phil were gone. No one ever believed Timmy when he tried to explain what happened, and why he told people to be quiet when flies entered a room.