Amongst the Gadflies

by Ford Collins

  He crossed over the river for the second time that day, and found himself looking for some profound signal in the swirls and passing wisps of foam as he traversed the bridge. He learned nothing.

  He walked up Main without urgency, studying the geometry of the corridor stretching away into patches of silvery haze.

  The central business district’s pulse slowed to near hibernation during weekends. Taxis sporadically passed, moving well below the downtown speed limit of twenty-five miles per hour in order to milk passengers of an extra dollar or two. City buses roared by every seven or eight minutes, in contrast to the increments of only three to four minutes during the week. Pedestrians were predominantly students and vagrants, both species wandering aimlessly.

  He passed the elevated courtyard at Clinton Avenue and Main where he’d sat twenty-four hours previous. The furry and feathered beasts maintained their routine with no indication they had noticed Lowell pass by.

  He kept on up Main for another two hundred yards until making a right on East, and his third left onto Gibbs.

  Lowell hadn’t set out for Café Noir, but found himself beneath the shop’s olive and brown awning, looking at nearly his full reflection in one of the large front windows. The daylight at the moment was brilliant enough to create a strong, clear image, but only where the surface behind the window was blurred dark. His head lined up perfectly with an elliptical advertisement dangling by a string from the ceiling.

  At first it was sheer white. The back of the board. It eventually began to spin lightly, caught in the breeze from a customer passing by. For about ten seconds, Lowell’s mirror image was whole, head intact and staring back at him.

  The rotation kept on until the reflection’s head became a printed side of a promotional photo of a coffee bean. The cleft down the center of the giant bean made it look as though it was split, or splitting, in two. Two perfect halves of a whole, held together by the darkness between them.

  One word, presumably the name of the company whose wares the sign hawked, was written in fragile white cursive across the bean, bridging the divide from one hemisphere to the other: Brothers.

  [Fourteen]

  “Hey! Hey, man! Get the hell out from under there, man!”

  Lowell came to with a thick, incredibly hairy hand grasping the front lapel of his coat and shaking him violently. He followed the hand, up the arm, to a bearded, dark tan face with bushy black eyebrows pinched down close to the cheekbones and black eyes glimmering through them.

  “Get up man! You can’t sleep here, kid. You tryin’ to get mugged or freeze to death or somethin’?”

  Lowell sat upright. He found his glasses lying unharmed on the ground between his legs and slid them on, thumbing them up to the bridge of his nose. He shuddered, leaned forward for a moment, nearly vomited, then reached his naked hand to a spot of lightning strike pain at the back of his skull. His fingers returned with a clump of hair coated in viscous, coagulating claret. He could smell the metallic tang of blood in the cold twilight air.

  “Oh, damn, dude! You already been mugged or somethin’?”

  The man was wearing a whitish tank top, black-and-white hound’s-tooth pants, black sneakers, and an apron dyed calico by an array of spattered grease and foodstuffs.

  “Jesus. You okay, man?”

  “I don’t know. What… Where am I?”

  “Halfway under the dumpster out back of Cheesebarger’s, man. How’d you get all fucked up? You remember anythin’ at all?”

  “No. I… I don’t.” The last thing Lowell could recall was the coffee sign spinning into place to knock his head from its perch. That wouldn’t have made any sense to say aloud to the face now leaning over him, so he stared at the pavement and tried to steady himself enough to turn to one side and get to his feet.

  “Whoa, whoa, brother! You’re gonna bust yourself up even worse if you…” The man tried to slide his fingers under Lowell’s arm to keep him from tipping over into the garbage bags sitting beside the trash bin, but Lowell pulled out of his grip.

  He held up one hand, waving weakly, to ward off the short order cook.

  “I’m not your brother.”

  “Hey, calm down, man. You got yourself a real bang on your skull there. You gotta get yourself to a hospital or somethin’ before your brains start fallin’ out of your head, man.”

  “Probably right. Do you have something I can cover it up with in the mean time?”

  “A nasty rag, man. That’s all I got on me.” The cook waved a putrid dishrag in front of him and shrugged. “Hold on, gimme a sec.”

  He stepped through the back door into the kitchen, and returned shortly with two stained but clean-smelling towels.

  Lowell accepted them, gingerly nodded his thanks, and pressed the cloths to the top and back of his head.

  “You wanna come in and sit down for a few minutes, drink some coffee or somethin’, man?”

  “No. I should get moving.”

  “You, uh… You’re goin’ to the hospital, right?”

  “I probably should.” Lowell rolled over to his knees and pushed himself upright, resting one hand on the trash bin for support.

  “I can get someone to drive you, man. You probably shouldn’t be drivin’ no car like…”

  “I don’t drive. I don’t have a car. And I don’t need a ride. Thank you for your help.” Lowell slowly rounded the back corner of the restaurant and turned right onto Monroe Avenue. It was less than a half mile to his apartment.

  “Yeah… hey, uh… be careful, man, yeah?” The cook’s voice faded into the ringing in Lowell’s head and the hiss of tires rolling over the wet pavement of the street beside him.

  It must have snowed again, or rained, since whenever he’d left downtown. He turned over his left hand to check the time, but his watch had died at quarter after four. That would have been well after he stood in front of the café, so he had no idea if the watch had been broken during his beating, or whether it was just coincidence.

  Honestly, Lowell didn’t have a clue whether he was beaten or not. The time had hightailed it between the window on Gibbs Street and the trash bin ten minutes ago, leaving him to fend for himself.

  The shuffling population of Monroe Avenue on a cold, wet Saturday evening wasn’t the sort that would be offended by, or even take notice of, a young man walking unevenly down the sidewalk wearing a stunned expression and a blood-soaked dish towel headdress.

  And so, without further incident, Lowell covered the few hundred steps to his home, climbed the stairs to his apartment, and unlocked and opened his front door.

  On his table was the envelope he’d dropped into the post office box that morning. It was unopened, and painted in specks and spatters of bright red that appeared to be fresh.

  [Fifteen]

  Lowell removed his boots after closing the door behind him. He hung his coat on a wall hook nearby, and walked around the table to the kitchen.

  A small stack of clean, neatly folded white towels sat on the counter. He unfolded one and used it to replace the crown beginning to stiffen around his stinging scalp. His eyes never left the envelope.

  He’d heard a familiar buzzing whine slowly circling the room from the time he walked into the apartment, but hadn’t acknowledged it.

  Wooden legs grunted and skipped across the floor as Lowell pulled a chair from under the table’s edge.

  He sat down, straightened his spine, leveled his shoulders, and placed his hands, palms down, on either side of the sealed letter.

  A fresh drop of crimson plopped down on the paper from above, splattering over “To My” on the envelope’s face.

  The whine began to descend over Lowell’s head, dropping to his eye level before he looked up.

  The mosquito’s body was soaked in blood, her wings spitting a halo as she hovered.

  She paused to return Lowell’s gaze, then alit on the tabletop.

  Lowell blinked and watched the insect scale the envelope, which had become wavy from saturati
on. The ink of the handwritten words had expanded into purple glyphs.

  “I thought you might want this back.”

  Her words were tinny but clear. The mosquito tilted her head back, allowing her to gauge Lowell’s reactions while she spoke.

  “Wh–” His exhausted voice croaked in his parched throat. He swallowed and quietly asked again, “Why?”

  She shook her head.

  “Lowell, you can’t save yourself by saving him. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t blame you. I came here to be sure you didn’t blame yourself, either.”

  “I made my choices.” He arched his back, stretching bruised and aching muscles, and sighed heavily. “I made my choices and I live with them.”

  “You can’t save him, Lowell. No theories or penance can change that.”

  “I don’t intend to change anything. I made my choices and I live with them.”

  She nodded solemnly and flitted her wings to keep the blood from solidifying.

  “No one forced him to stay for me. I didn’t force him to stay for me. He gave up his place for his own sense of duty. I made my choices and I live with them.”

  “And you’ve made that clear, Lowell.” She bent her legs, preparing for flight.

  Her shredded and yet somehow distended abdomen hung in flaps near the paper she rested on.

  The bloody aura carried itself, freeing her to operate her wings and tiny, broken body.

  “Do what you wish with the letter. Mailing it won’t do you any good. It won’t do him any good.”

  “I know.”

  “Then you’ve no use for me, Lowell. I can’t help those who choose to suffer alone.”

  His expression softened, and he leaned forward, trying to see her eyes more clearly.

  “I… I know he’s… Have you seen him? Can you speak with him for me?”

  “You know I can’t, Lowell.”

  Lowell’s eyes fell to his hands.

  She relaxed, tucked her wings back, and lowered her dripping belly to the envelope.

  “What would you have me say to him, Lowell?”

  “I would ask him if he regrets staying behind. Staying for me. He had a chance to be released…”

  “Released from what?”

  “Released from… from the suffering. Released from the pain of having to look into every wasted, hollow face, and be reminded over and over… be forced to admit that there’s no cure for what makes them become what they are.”

  “You don’t think he was released from his suffering by staying? By seeing that you weren’t left to face your suffering alone?”

  “I… I don’t…”

  “And there is no release from the pain, Lowell. Pain is the catalyst for existence. The desire to escape from pain is what drives human beings, and all living things for that matter, to create and compete and evolve.”

  “Evolve. You think man has evolved? I’ve tried to unlock… If anything, man has devolved. Man has degenerated to equate sensation with satisfaction. There’s no synthesis, no study, no thought! The means are the ends, and it’s never questioned…”

  “It’s true, I’ll grant that once numbness to pain has been prolonged, ennui can set in, followed by an atrophy of everything gained. Man forgets what he runs from once he’s lost sight of it behind the safety of his shelters.

  And what incentive is there to suffer again for the sake of enlightenment when comfort is already within reach?”

  She followed the outline of his face with her eyes for a moment before nodding.

  “And what of you, Lowell?”

  “Me?”

  “You don’t synthesize? Study? Think? Debate? Do you believe that you’re not a man? Do you see yourself as the sole exhibit of some elevated form of evolution?”

  “Semantics. I know my place. It’s to observe. To understand…”

  “You believe you understand, and yet you continue to question. You will never understand, Lowell. You’ve all evolved to accept delusions as ether to distract you from the pain. And you’re no different.”

  “I accept nothing.”

  “Nonsense! You lock yourself inside your own mind and employ a chamber of study, a laboratory within your head, a representation of your supposed place as observer, as impartial judge of all mankind. This is your ether, Lowell. Of what value is a life engaged in nothing but judgment of that which has already been judged? You’ve decided that man is inconsequential, and yet you persist.”

  “And what’ve I accepted by doing so?”

  “You’ve accepted your own insignificance by installing yourself as an adjudicator of insignificant subjects. You attempt to define your evolution by lowering yourself to the level of the vermin you scrutinize. You distinguish undesirable characteristics of men and deride them for possessing them, blind to your possession of those very same characteristics while doing so! Your contempt is conceived from insecurities. Your biases from ignorance. The very act of judgment is shaped by vanity.”

  He watched her take to the air and hover inches from his eyes.

  “I will not judge you, Lowell. You’ve chosen to criticize. Very well. Then you are the critic of all mankind.”

  She nodded briefly, then her voice rose and hardened.

  “But… Don’t pretend to be what you are not, and don’t forget what you are, Lowell. You’ve chosen to lie eye-to-eye with the vermin. You’ve chosen to live amongst the gadflies. Don’t be surprised when the mask you’ve recognized all your life has been removed, exposing a sickness in your every reflection.”

  The mosquito rose above his line of vision, moved to the back of his head, and landed on a small section of the wound exposed beyond an edge of the bloody cloth.

  Her pinpoint feet ticked around the torn scalp.

  Then nothing.

  He reached back and pulled the towel from the top of his head, and carefully felt for the insect’s body. His fingertips came up empty.

  She hadn’t flown away—he would have heard her.

  He assumed she’d burrowed completely beneath his skin with the desire to be sealed inside, having fulfilled her objective.

  He would oblige.

  Lowell took a sewing kit from his desk drawer, stood before the bathroom mirror to find a point of reference for what he could not see directly, and stitched shut the three-inch gash with black thread.

  It took him twenty-seven minutes, including time to rethread the first needle once and a second needle twice. The second needle was necessary after the other bent at an angle that would have split the scalp further with each insertion. His head seared and throbbed. His eyes ran like open taps onto his cheeks and down his neck, and the tears darkened the front of his shirt.

  After the adrenaline he’d summoned to get himself through the procedure dissipated, Lowell vomited into the sink, collapsed on the tile floor, and passed out.

  [Sixteen]

  Saturday crept into Sunday with Lowell in the same position on his bathroom floor.

  The bleeding had stopped, although there were several small gaps in the stitching that allowed traces of seepage from the already infected wound to remain tacky.

  With the sun still hours away, Lowell’s lips and fingers finally twitched back to life. His eyes spun under closed lids.

  His temperature had spiked. Sweat poured from every surface of his body, and had soaked through his clothes and into the mat below his arms and chest. He shivered intensely, chilled by air gliding over the perspiration.

  Spastic hands found the floor and flattened, palms down. He lifted himself to his hands and knees, and pushed backward, resting his buttocks on his heels. The stench of vomit in the sink basin wafted near his face, and his stomach tightened and released in a fit of dry heaves. He fell forward again onto his hands.

  The walls and floor tiles streaked, spun, and faded through shades of grayscale and pastel tones. Spots danced at the periphery of his vision.

  His scalp had numbed somewhat
, but still pulsed in a manic cadence. Waves of fire rippled through his head and neck on each downbeat. Again he pushed back and rested on his heels, with one hand on the wall and the other on the toilet lid to steady himself.

  With concentration, he followed the walls and doorframes and counter tops and table edges to his bedroom, where he collapsed again, this time onto his bed.

  He’d dropped his glasses on the bathroom floor, and couldn’t see clearly, which intensified the nausea gripping his guts and throat.

  Lowell rolled to his right side, moving more slowly than he could recall moving in his entire life.

  Once on his back, he watched the blurred outline of the ceiling light fixture waltz alone in a small, controlled loop directly overhead.

  His eyes adjusted slightly, and he found he could focus further by concentrating on the exact location of the fixture, using coordinates based on the plaster grid from wall to wall.

  The glass dome hung just southeast of the ceiling’s midpoint.

  Lowell would have preferred the globe to be absolutely centered, as it rubbed some deliriously exposed nerve, a compulsion to arrange everything in the world around him into an organic sort of symmetry.

  His effort to manually fine-tune his visual acuity didn’t benefit, either, from his sense that the fixture looked like a solitary, swollen, and very pale breast emerging from an opening directly above his bedroom.

  Lowell imagined himself immobilized in an enormous, sloppy swaddling cloth for feeding time.

  He felt compelled to grip his shirt where it clung to his chest, and tear down and away from his body to release himself from the wrap.

  The crash of a neighbor’s front door jarred him from his hallucination, and the giantess living in the apartment above dejectedly withdrew her exposed gland from its frame and returned the glass bowl to its poorly placed anchor.

  Lowell wept with no sound or movement. His eyes glazed over and the ceiling, the fixture, and the patterned plaster all faded from view.

  [Seventeen]