Once there was a fly. Like all flies, its lifespan was short. It spent the last twenty minutes of its brief existence in the snowy yet strangely warm and bristly terrain of a political candidate’s head.

The fly did not know its end was imminent. The fly had no idea it existed. Nor was the fly aware that it had a sudden, captive audience and was about to be famous.

Though the fly was non-partisan, the audience attributed all kinds of partisan motives to its appearance. Some laughed and pointed at their screens, feeling smug and victorious about the fly’s choice of landing pads. Others didn’t notice the fly at all and the next day, wondered what all the fuss was about. Still others hoped the fly, upon hearing the righteous message from on high, would take flight and land on the evil candidate’s head. 

The fly poked around a little, getting a sense of this new terrain. But the lights grew hotter and the voices got louder and the fly smelled burning, that didn’t register as burning, but rather, a sensation of pain.    

The fly left its wings and body atop the white bristly terrain. It looked down at candidates and the woman asking them questions and across the Earth at the humans, yelling and screaming and pointing the finger, and digging their heels into their crumbling planet. 

The fly wondered, for the first time in its existence, about its fellow flies still buzzing around Earth, unaware. It wondered any of them would get their twenty minutes of fame, which was five minutes more than most humans supposedly are due.

The fly, now wise as well as famous, realized the answer to the one question it had ever asked, didn’t matter one tiny speck.

Photo By Benjamint444