Fruit Flies and Angels
If I decay in bed now, my bones would turn paper-thin and flutter in the wind of my giant floor fan, which of course would stay running far past my untimely death. In autumn, I’d turn into brittle brown leaves with tiny telescopic holes that crunch satisfyingly underfoot. But today it is winter, and winter is white and unforgiving. So, I think of paper, and how my bones will be thin and torn and sagging, reminiscent of my terrible posture in life; the posture of a writer. I wonder if my home, then, would become some sort of museum; you walk into the bedroom and see not a dead woman decayed, but transformed. The other rooms of my home could certainly be on display, too. I reserve my limited walks to the kitchen for when hunger renders me sleepless with unbearable stomach cramps, but every time I see it, I imagine the scene before me to be a photograph in National Geographic or The New York Times. The article would be an exposé on the failures of American living, and it would be titled something like “The New Modern Woman.” And there, in yellow-lit hues, would be my dishes in the sink, an orb of fruit flies stationed over the brown bananas, and cheap white countertops gritty with grime.
I try to think back to a time when I was ever proud of my home. I think, in a distant sense, I am still glad I own something—glad I have something I can definitively call mine. But my home is as temporary as my life. There is a chance that once I do decay in bed—spine curved up on my platformed pillows—someone will take me away and bury me in some ground I have never touched before. They will sell my home, bring in a new mattress, and perhaps even discard mine because a woman tragically died on it, and it would probably smell foul. It already does.
The last time I ventured out of my home was around three weeks ago when I met up with Bryce. He wore squarish glasses, was handsome, polite; he had dirt beneath his fingernails, and too much gel in his hair. We dated in high school, but now, Bryce is a grown man with a young name. He was my first, and for some reason, I let him pressure me into it, even though I was smart and knew better at the time. He would embarrass me in front of my friends if I said no, grabbing my ass or drifting a hand over my tits. It was blackmail, and sometimes, I fantasize about killing him. When I met with him, though, we sipped coffees pleasantly and talked about our respective careers. He does something with tech that I don’t care enough to understand, and I sell beauty products over the phone. I mentioned that I’m writing a novel right now, and he nodded his head.
“I’ll do that one day, too,” he said. “Bucket list.”
I did not say, in my bones, I am a writer, so much so that my deathbed will be my literal bed, with me curled around my notebooks. I never want to seem too confident with the things that I adore.
As we left the pretentious coffee place he chose, I noticed he wasn’t wearing nonslip shoes, and he fell comically on an ice patch, likely concussing himself. I pretended that I received an emergency phone call from my mother and rushed away, avoiding the ice and stepping on slush. Still, I looked back and saw him pathetically lying on the ice, limbs spread, looking at the sunless sky. A woman rushed to his side, and I made myself vanish.
…
The view from my kitchen window shows that the snow has nearly melted, and spring must be approaching. I’m not sure what day it is. I think it’s been a solid twenty-four hours since I’ve set foot in my little kitchen. I rely on my kitchen window for news of the outside world. The blinds of my bedroom window are pulled taut and have been for months. I can’t allow sunlight in my room because I enjoy consistency these days, more than I ever used to. I used to be a take-what-you-throw-at-me kind of person. I thought it would make me a cooler girl. Now, I gate keep anything that comes my way. Sunlight? No, you shouldn’t be here, not in my room. If man-made light is barred, then so is everything like it. Consistency and darkness go hand in hand for me.
I always eat over the kitchen sink next to the Orb. The Orb is the group of fruit flies that have found refuge in my kitchen. I imagine they are a family, and to separate them now would be a tragedy. Plus, their presence comforts me, always flying over my rotted fruit in a spherical shape, a few escaping and exploring my hair while I eat whatever food I can stomach that day. Once, a fruit fly from the Orb followed me up to my room, and I was filled with the greatest sorrow for it. Perhaps it clung to my head as I walked up the stairs, feeling the rush of roller-coaster wind. Or it flew behind me, beating its greasy wings up and up to discover some new fruit. Either way, it buzzed about my room happily for about an hour before it became fixated with my door. Watching from my bed, trying to catch the fly’s slight frame in the darkness, I named it Ernesto. Ernesto lost his curiosity and flew in angry ovals into my door. He wanted to return to his family, the Orb, and their great moldy sustenance. Yet, I was too exhausted to stand and open my door, and Ernesto couldn’t understand my pleas for him to simply fly through the small sliver between the bottom of the door and the carpet. So, his ovals became small circles, and his buzzing became complaining; then silence. The next time I arose from my bed, I kneeled on the floor by my door to locate his body, but my carpet was so dirty that I could not tell the difference between him and a forgotten crumb.
…
I wake in a haze of sleep, flurries of dust occasionally visible from dim light seeping through the blinds. A loud, banging noise sounds from downstairs, and I reach my hand up like a cat, batting away at the dust above me. Despite my persistent lying in bed, the noise continues—knocking, I realize—for an impressive amount of time. Conceding, I stand and pull a pair of loose pants over my pale, prickly legs. The knocking rises in tempo as I make the short walk to the top of my stairs. I grip the wooden railing with both hands and gingerly place a foot on the step below me. They’re carpeted, I remember now. Didn’t they used to be white and comfortable with bare feet? In my hungry hazes, trembling down the stairs, I never realized just how gritty the carpet below felt.
Finally, I reach the bottom of the stairs, forearms aching from gripping the railing so tightly. I fumble with the lock and slightly open my front door so only I am in view. My mother appears on the other side like an apparition, looking thin and perpetually perplexed. I could be slicing bread and she would furrow her brow.
“Why are you doing such a thing?” she would ask.
“To eat,” I would reply.
“Why?”
“To nourish, and survive, and taste.”
“I never had to do that,” she would say. “I never had to take out a knife and slice and slice.”
“Then, how did you survive?” At this, her confusion would grow to its paramount, and she would slice off the conversation.
Now, she stands before me, and the backlight of the sun crowds her, making her look smaller rather than highlighting her figure.
“Casey called me because you won’t respond to her. So, I called and you never responded to me. How am I supposed to know you’re not dead?” she scolded.
“I don’t know, Mom,” I say. “Look at the obituary. Don’t old people still read newspapers?”
She bristles. “I just wanted to check on you. You don’t look so good, sweetie. You look sick. What is that shirt? Why aren’t you wearing a bra?”
“I’m in my own house.”
“But you have a visitor.”
“An unexpected one,” I say. “Since when have you been keeping in touch with Casey, anyway?”
“I’ve had her number since you two were in high school, in case of emergencies. You were each other’s only friends.”
“I had other friends, Mom.”
“Not good ones. Are you going to let me into the house?”
I hold up my pointer finger. “Wait.” I swing the door closed and lock it, and then walk over to where the Orb awaits me in the kitchen.
“I don’t think she’ll like you guys,” I whisper. Their low buzz sounds in response. “And I’d rather just hang out with you.” My plan is to stand for ten minutes against my kitchen counter, so my mother assumes I’m cleaning something, preparing the house for her entrance. Then, I’ll act like I’m meeting a friend, vaguely reschedule with her for a date in the future and, all the while, appear as if I have a buzzing social life. I look in my phone contacts and find the most recent sent text. It’s to Bryce from three weeks ago, and it says good to see you too! “What’s the worst that could happen?” I ask the Orb.
The worst, the Orb repeats, low and sizzling with energy, exhilarated by the mushy honey crisp apple next to the bananas. The worst. They are distracted, so I pick up the apple and squeeze it between my fingertips. The especially dark spots cave in immediately, brown slush spotting my right hand, dripping excruciatingly slow to the rug below me. A flock of fruit flies follows my hand and surrounds it in a flurry. Some follow the brown drip down to the rug to drink. Delicately, I set the remains of the apple back on the counter and step on the Orb members who chose the rug, crushing them with my bare foot.
“The worst, indeed,” I say, looking down at the still dot bodies, frozen in time, wings too small to see through the coarseness of the rug. “Go find Ernesto for me.”
…
As planned, I leave my mom behind, rushing out the door as if I forgot about this exciting social engagement. She stands on the little brown porch, pulling her car keys from her purse, and I pull away from my driveway.
It takes me about five minutes to arrive at the same coffee shop Bryce and I met at three weeks ago. He responded to my text suspiciously quickly, saying he was already there. U know it’s my fav place to go. Catch me there every morning, lol, he said.
Lol indeed. I see Bryce at the same small circular table, thin chic chairs barely supporting him and the nearby customers. He stands up, and the four metal sticks that masquerade as chair legs squeak against the floor.
“You found me!”
I immediately huff and put my hands in the pocket of my baggy sweatshirt. “Thanks for meeting me,” I say, falling heavily in the chair. It tips back a bit, and I stomp both feet on the ground to steady myself. Bryce laughs at that, and it annoys me, so I say, “I just needed someone to get out of seeing my mom today.”
“Oh,” he says. “Don’t I feel special.”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Sorry.”
“No worries. I remember,” he sips his latte, “how much she used to stress you out. Hazelnut,” he adds, tilting his cup. “So, what’s new?”
Despite myself, I tell him all about my self-imposed isolation. “I’m writing something,” I tell him. “I need to be a hermit when I write, or else it’ll be shit.”
He laughs. “That doesn’t sound healthy.”
“It’s not,” I say. “I need space and quiet to come up with a good story, though.”
“A good story. You know, I am so happy to hear you say that.” He lets out a self-satisfied sigh. “Everything nowadays is about the past. It’s about trauma. It’s so easy to write about trauma,” he says. “Everyone thinks they identify with the victim. That’s what it is. It’s this newfound culture of victimization.”
“Hmm.”
“You know the DSM keeps expanding their definition of trauma? From like, war veterans to girls walking down the street at night. They wanted to feel special.”
“Who did?” I ask.
“What?”
“Who wanted to feel special?”
“You know, the girls, but that’s just an example.”
“Give me another example, then.”
He clears his throat and thinks for a moment. “Well, you know,” he says, “if someone’s mom was, like, mean to them, they could claim it as trauma.”
“If someone’s mom is mean to them?”
“Yeah.”
“Was your mom mean to you?”
He puts his coffee down. “Why would you ask that?”
I shrug. “Just curious.”
“Remember in high school when I drank a bottle of my dad’s beer and my mom threatened to get me drug tested? You could classify that as trauma these days.”
“Who wants to feel special now?” I ask.
“No, no, it was an example.” his voice rises.
Uncomfortable silence sits between us. Bristling a bit under my sweater, I break it. “Remember that time at UCLA? You took me to see the campus.” I search his face.
“Yeah, that was fun.”
“Do you remember the lecture hall? The stage?”
“Oh, yeah. I do.” A corner of his mouth turns up fondly.
I remember it, too. I was sixteen, and I felt vulnerable and exposed. I said no, no, no. We snuck into an empty room: drama class. The stage was cold and hard against my back. I couldn’t move. I started watching myself, and I hated the picture it made. I haven’t seen a play since.
Suddenly, there are so many questions on my tongue. How exactly do you remember it? I want to ask. How can you think of it and not blanch in the face? Not fall at my knees and beg for forgiveness? How are you not spending every moment of every second watching your back, because I’ve never felt this rage before, in my entire life, for any living thing?
I find comfort in the memory of his fall three weeks ago, seeing him hit his head on the ice. He was cold, laying down, and vulnerable. I left him there so the ice could seep into his bones, until he too became frozen.
I am numb and buzzing for the rest of the conversation. It seems to wrap up shortly. As I leave the café, I think of more questions. Am I destroying my home? Am I destroying my mother? Am I destroying my conscience? What will I destroy next?
…
That night, I return home to the Orb. They are small and quiet, but they buzz and delight in their decrepit meals. We love the rot, they tell me, don’t you? It’s delicious. Feed like us if you feel like us. I dig out a trash bag from underneath the kitchen sink and place the rotted bananas, honey crisp apple, lemons, limes, and tomatoes deep into the bottom, tie the top once, twice, three times, and throw it outside my front door. So long to the feast for an entity I cannot sustain.
Because my door is open, I see that the snow has not fully melted. A sheet of white is spread like icing across my front yard. I walk out, footsteps breaking its smooth sheen, and collapse on my back, limbs aghast. When was the last time I made a snow angel? I think. I flap my arms and legs. I giggle. I feel like a child. I am making the most beautiful snow angel, and it triumphs in the evermoving shape of my body.
I lay in the frost, let it soak through my clothes as I move through the snow. I envy those who have always been mobile and agile. This is why people want to make beautiful things, I realize. Because they are alive, and they are capable. The messy strokes of arms making wings—movement making still images beautiful. I am not so naïve to think the snow will never melt. Next winter, though, it will return, and I will savor the cold all over again—savor the picture I make in it.
Jules Krueger is a twenty-year-old junior at Belmont University. They are studying to receive their B.A. in creative writing with a minor in publishing. Hailing from Ohio and California, Jules aspires to write literary fiction professionally and work in the trade publishing field. Reach out to them at julia.krueger@pop.belmont.edu!
Jules Krueger received the McDonald-Pinter Award for Best Writing in the Belmont Literary Journal 2022 issue. In honor of Jules Krueger winning, a quote from "Fruit Flies and Angels" is featured on a bookmark with a design created by Anwaar Muhsin.
“‘Fruit Flies and Angels’ certainly brings attention to a particular type of haunting which often forces women into silence. This story explores the complexity of a woman’s struggle with depression and the various voices which shame her trauma. As an artist, the narrator uses her words to repair the damage committed against her mind and body.”
-Dr. Jennifer Buentello, Judge for the 2022 McDonald-Pinter Award
