Despite the compassion he bore
for them, some
things were out of the question.
Surgical repair, for example. Even
with a high powered
microscope and an assortment of
tiny instruments, one could no more
put a patch on a damaged
wing or red jewel of an eye than one
could treat gossamer or ghost-flesh.
Meanwhile, at work,
he sabotaged the containers of
chemical sprays, eradicated all
vestiges of spiders
and their nasty webs, left doors
and windows ajar, containers of
cafeteria food open,
toilets unflushed. Token efforts,
to be sure; the best he could
otherwise do
was open up his house to them
all year round, provide someplace
warm and nourishing
for them to breed and deposit their
gleaming eggs. One got used to the smell,
to the cloudlets
of black life, to the insane, high-pitched
buzz of their strafing, and when they
landed on him,
crawling about his pale flesh, he took
comfort, as, in the tickling multiplicity
of their legs,
they brailled his love and affection.
(Was it not the Seraphim who bore
six wings? Surely,
there was a hexapodal equivalent.)
Never, ever once, would he swat
at them, even in jest,
and while the accidental havoc
he's caused in his attempts to rid
the world of real vermin
might eventually be discovered,
although the media might puzzle a bit
over his self-applied
nickname (no southern sobriquet,
but a shortened version of the Hebrew
zebûb), not a single
one of his co-workers, family members,
or neighbors would fail to mention how
quiet he was;
how he liked to keep to himself;
the gentle sort of person who, under
no circumstances,
would ever harm even a fly.