The Fruit Fly
“The main thing to remember is that everything is a battle between life and death.”
She looked at her Grandfather resting peacefully in his old recliner. He had his knife in one hand and a stick of wood in the other. He spent a good part of each day sitting in that chair, in the orchard just picking away at a stick. She wondered how he could sit like that and work with such intensity until the wood was all used up. Then, he would pick up another stick from the pile next to his recliner and start all over again.
“But Grandpa, I don’t get that. Isn’t it really about good and evil?”
He looked up from his stick and smiled at her. He seemed distracted and looked around as though seeking a chalkboard on which to scribble out his answer.
“Hmmm, O.K., Sweet Pea, what do you know about those fruit flies buzzing around that rotten apple over there by the pump?”
“I don’t know anything about fruit flies, Grandpa…except they’re annoying.”
“Well, let me tell you a little bit about them, Honey. Now, the average fruit fly lives just a short time. She is born, grows, lays eggs and dies in the span of two weeks. See how frantic they are? For good reason, don’t you think? They just don’t have a lot of time.”
He struggled up out of his recliner. It looked odd sitting there empty under the tree. It belonged in an old rumpus room or a basement somewhere in the midwest. He walked over to the pump and bent down and picked up the rotten apple he had been talking about. He held it up to his face and the fruit flies followed. He didn’t flinch.
“Now, see how they follow the rotten apple? Look how close they are to my face. In order to get at the apple they don’t care one bit if they fly in my face or into my open mouth. They are single-minded in their pursuit of the apple.”
“Yes I see that, Grandpa. But how is that about life and death?” Beth cringed at the thought of the fruit flies so close to Grandpa’s face.
“Because, honey, the fruit fly knows it’s time is limited. It has to accomplish a great deal in a very short period of time and that urgency makes it forget all else. It doesn’t care whose space it invades or where it lands, it just knows in this case it wants the apple.”
She looked at him blankly.
“Reminds you of some people, right?”
“O.K. but I still don’t get why the fruit fly is about life and death. Seriously, Grandpa, you’re just not helping me.” She felt the tears welling up
She was still stinging from her demotion as the first violinist in the community youth orchestra, a position she had held since she was twelve and old enough to be part of that group of exceptional musicians. For three years she had been the first violinist and they had won many awards during that time. She was the best one. She knew it. Everyone in the orchestra knew it. Everyone that is, except Mr. Burchard, the conductor. Ever since Maddy had moved to town she had been doing everything she could to get on his good side. She stayed late, she took private lessons from him, she laughed at his dumb music jokes. “It’s not fair!” She had been stuck on the injustice for days. “It’s just not fair,” she exclaimed out loud.
“All right, Beth. Let me try it this way. The fruit fly is instinctively programmed to find the rotten apple. It doesn’t have much time to do it, so it flies and buzzes and doesn’t care where it lands as it seeks its goal. Good?”
Beth rolled her eyes in answer as Grandpa kept whittling away at his stick. He had returned to his recliner and was intent on his work. Beth saw he wasn’t looking at her and she was starting to think he wasn’t listening either. She felt a desperate sense of anxiety since he had always been a source of comfort to her; Grandpa had never let her down. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore. Maybe he just didn’t have what it took to solve teenage problems.
“Now, it’s the time limitation that’s really bugging that fruit fly. It’s making him crazy. He knows he has to hurry.” Her Grandfather looked up from his stick and pointed his knife in the direction of his giant, snoring dog curled up not far from his chair. “Now look at Ole Beau laying over there. He’s got plenty of time. Years. He can lay right here next to me all day long and that’s all he has to do day in and day out. He knows I love him and always will—he’s got nothing to prove.”
At the sound of his name, Ole Beau didn’t open his eyes or perk up his ears. The only recognition he gave was a gentle tap of the tip of his tail.
“The point??? What is the point, Grandpa? That Ole Beau is a lazy old dog and wouldn’t get up if the orchard was on fire? Don’t you see Grandpa, she took my spot? My spot! I earned it and I have been leading the orchestra for three years. Now she comes in and takes my spot. She’s evil! Evil, evil evil!” Beth was sobbing now. “I don’t care about stupid fruit flies or Ole Beau. I care about me!”
He reached down and drew her up into his arms. “I know Sweet Pea,” he said. He had tears in his eyes as he rocked her back and forth in his arms. She was shaking as she sobbed. “That’s it, honey, get it all out. There, there.” One lone tear dripped down his face and hung precariously from his chin.
“You see, Beth, Maddy is a fruit fly. She wants what she wants something crazy and she buzzed around Mr. Burchard in all her frantic desire until she got it. She didn’t care what she did to you. She landed on your territory and never thought twice about it. And, there is only one thing that could make someone that callous. Do you know what that is, honey?”
Her sobs were softer now and she laid her head on his big, old shoulder. She loved the smell of his coat, the mixture of hay and wood and Ole Beau. He was on her side; she could count on him after all. “I don’t Grandpa, what is it?”
“It is the sense of her mortality--her understanding that her time here is limited. She is frantic to find the apple. See, you and me, Beth, we believe in a better place after we’re done here. We’re sort of just getting started if you know what I mean. I used to tell your grandmother when she was upset, “Ella, just relax darling, this here is about the closest we ever get to Hell.” She would swat me when I said that and then she would wink and laugh no matter how bad things was.”
“But Grandpa, she took my spot and she isn’t even sorry! I hate her.”
“Yes, I suppose you do and who could blame you? But she thinks she’s fighting for her life—just like the fruit fly. Maybe that will help you forgive her.”
Beth lay in his arms for quite some time, until the breeze that had been rustling the orchard leaves turned into a heavy and cold wind. Oppressive clouds were moving in overhead and she knew that it would rain soon. Yet, for reasons she didn’t understand, she felt a sense of peace. She was sure she still hated Maddy but she no longer felt so vulnerable. “She’s just a stinkin fruit fly,” she thought.
She stood up and Ole Beau lifted his head to look quizzically at Grandpa. “Well, Beth, how about you and me go inside and make some Jiffy Pop? And then we can watch Bonanza.” Beth hated Bonanza but she knew it was Grandpa’s favorite show, so she took his hand and helped him get heavily out of the recliner and they walked hand in hand through the orchard and into his house.
She hadn’t thought of that day until this moment and could still remember the vivid light that played through the orchard trees and the smell of ripe apples. The image of Grandpa sitting in the recliner was so real she felt she could hug him. She craved his earthy scent and longed to talk to him and ask his advice. But he had been gone for many years now.
“Mommy, I hate her! Why did she have to be on my team? She’s trying to take my spot! And she’s so mean!” The tears were running down Meggy’s face.
“Oh Meggy, honey, I understand. Come let me hold you.”
“She’s evil Mommy! Mean and ugly and I hate her. I wish she were dead!”
And, as though she had been transported back in time, Beth felt that peace she had felt in her Granfather’s arms so many years before. She wanted to share it with Meggy. She looked at her daughter with eyes filled deep with emotion.
“Do you remember me telling you about my Grandpa, Meggy? And his dog, Ole Beau?”
Meggy nodded as she wept.
“Well when I was sad my Grandpa would take me in his arms and he would say, “Sweet Pea, he called me Sweet Pea, when it seems real bad, just remember this is as close to Hell as we ever get.”
“Mommmm! Stop talking. I just hate her!”
“That’s O.K. Meggy, get it all out.”
And as Beth hugged her daughter she recalled what her Grandpa had said to her that Sunday afternoon so many years ago: “You know Meggy, everything is a battle between life and death. Now you take the fruit fly…”
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