"Dance with Flies" by Dylan James

Dance with Flies

The buzzing grew louder by the second, hypnotic in its redundancy. John was confused until he spotted the fly for himself. The fly frolicked through the air, exploring the bedroom joyously, before at last landing on his cheek with a tickling grace.
John felt the fly’s footpads dig into his skin, an oddly pleasing yet irksome sensation. He moved his right arm, watching it begin to levitate from off of the side of the bed, but quickly his arm collapsed back down in a matter of seconds like a flimsy noodle.
“Fuck . . . ” he muttered.
The fly remained.
“Is everything alright?” Megan appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were tired, but she appeared comfortable in her tattered Michigan State sweater — a sweater that had once been John’s, but she had long since claimed.
“There’s a fly.” John told her. “It keeps landing on my damn face.”
Megan squinted her eyes in concern, she walked towards the bed, and quickly she spotted the fly and shooed it away. John found himself admiring Megan, the natural grace she exuded, even when she was shooing flies. Every part of her body moved harmoniously and with calm, as only a dancer’s body could.
“I think you got it, babe.”
Megan smiled and sat down on the bed. Carefully, she avoided sitting down on John’s legs in the process, despite the fact that John hadn’t been able to feel anything in his legs for over two years. She gently put her hand on John’s shoulder, a place where he could feel her touch. To her dismay, John’s eyes began to well up, shining with tears. John clenched his mouth tightly, staring at her.
“What’s wrong, John?”
As tears began to slither down John’s cheeks, John wanted to wipe them away but remembered he couldn’t. It didn’t matter. Megan wiped them away instead, gracefully with her fingers, caressing him.
“I have nothing to offer you.” John spoke through a clenched jaw, the words punching out of his mouth, out of his gut. “Nothing . . . ”
Megan grabbed John’s hand out of instinct, thinking about her next words carefully. She scanned the bed-sheets and the faded traces of spaghetti sauce that had never left them, remembering how hard it had been feeding her husband at first after the accident. How hard caring for him in entirety had been. But she had gotten better. They had gotten better.
But it was still hard.
A framed photo sat on the nightstand, and Megan stared at it. She didn’t recognize the faces in the photo. It was her and John, but it wasn’t. Their faces pulsated with warmth in the photo, while foamy waves of green sloshed behind them as they embraced — when John could still walk. When Megan could still dance. When their impromptu trip to Nags Head, North Carolina, had been the highlight of their sophomore year of college.
“I love you, John.” Megan smiled with everything left.
John’s mouth unclenched, his facial stubble faintly rustling, as if being scratched. He looked away from Megan and stared out of the window. The sun was bright outside. The house across the street was a fixer-upper, occupied by a persistent elderly couple. At all times of the day in their neighborhood, gunshots were frequent. Cars blasted loud music with obnoxious bass nonstop, too. But John had no complaints, no complaints at all — except that the woman he loved was loving him to death.
“I love you too.” John spoke softly.
Megan lingered on the bed, waiting to find John’s gaze, settling instead for his drying eyes when he refused to look up at her. Megan sat up and nimbly walked away. As she left the room, John looked up and watched her disappear.

Dylan James

Dylan James is an emerging writer, based out of Columbus, Ohio. His fiction has appeared in Trembling With Fear, Metonym Journal, Gypsophila Magazine, and more. Find him on Instagram @dylanthomasjames

Headshot: Simon Yao

Photo Credit: Staff