The Yellow Fly

Yesterday I was working on a painting in my dusty garage. I was not listening to music so I could hear the wood bending sound of the roof sinking towards the ground. The garage was so dusty that I had difficulty keeping dust specks off of the tip of my nose and off of the canvas upon which I was working. A fly hovered annoyingly around my face and ears. There are few things that bug (no pun intended) me more than the frenetic sounds that a flying fly makes. The only living creature that I occasionally obliterate with magazines is the fly.

As I was searching for a magazine (which, I was going to use as a bat while pretending that the fly was the ball) I noticed that the fly was stuck in a metallic bowl filled with yellow paint. I was using this paint so I needed to get the fly out (I did consider somehow incorporating the fly into the painting somehow). I used the tip of my paintbrush to scoop the fly out of the glob of yellow paint. At first the fly which was now completely colored yellow was not moving. I assumed that it had either suffocated in the paint or died from the toxic fumes.

I went back to working on my painting and enjoyed not hearing any fly sounds. Occasionally I would hear the wood ceiling bend but other than this there was silence. As I was gradually allowing myself to fall away into the flow of the painting I again heard the annoying sound of the fly. I instinctually went to grab the magazine but as I did so I noticed that it was the yellow paint covered fly buzzing around. I suddenly found myself not wanting to obliterate the fly. A creature that had annoyed me to no ends suddenly became a work of art right in front of my eyes. Watching it fly around in the garage in all of its magnificent yellowness was a far greater aesthetic experience than any experience I had ever had looking at art. I was in awe.

As I watched the fly buzz around and around I said to myself, “now this is incredible modern art.” Like a man in his favorite art gallery, I spent the rest of the afternoon spellbound by the yellow fly. Since I am an avid supporter of the modern arts, as it was getting dark and the yellow fly was slowing down, I decided that it would only be fair to open the garage door and allow the yellow fly to go free.