Craziness Redefined

There is a lone fly in the room and it is on my desk.

I swear that flies, like mosquitoes, sense that I have the greatest disgust for them, and so, by default, they take the role of antagoniser and single me out as the protagonist, even when there are others in a room.

I know I bathe. I know I wash properly, I wear clean clothes. I brush my teeth. I wash my hair even more than I should. So why me?

Why me?

What great sin have I commited to be banished to insect hell?

Now there are two flies. Misery loves company.

And there are three. A crowd.

I notice that more are perched on other people’s desks, but I seem to be the only one visibly disgusted with the concept of sharing my space with flies.

Maybe it is indeed a cultural barrier.

Where I come from, flies follow mangoes, fish and filth. If there is none of the former two, then you face sheer condemnation.

But here, flies are the mainstay of daily living. It appears to be OK to walk with a buzzing posse. Why else would stray animals be continued to roam streets and yards and conduct their most basic deeds freely? Why else would such evidence not be removed immediately from walkways of offices? Why else would people continually step in it, taking the smell of a pig sty into banks, utility companies and even the supermarket?

Yes- the supermarket, but I won’t even go there.

I must admit that when I first came here, I thought that some crazy person was following me around. The kind of crazy that makes one unconscious that eliminating bodily waste is something best done in private, and washed away immediately after. The kind of crazy that makes the one so affected involuntarily eliminate and voluntarily do it on onself. It was only when I could not find that consistent face, that I realised it must be something else. When I started walking the streets, I saw why.

I guess I come from a place of normal people. Because crazy people drive straight through potholes, so driving in Jamaica is usually characterized with a lot of zig-zagging. Here, I must seem crazy because I zig zag when I walk and drive. Not to avoid potholes, but filth.

Try as I may though, there is something associated with such widescale messiness, that I just cannot seem to shirk- the flies.