Author's Note
So this is just a weird idea that I had like five years ago but never finished properly. It's not much but it was very nearly completed so I just thought I'd finish it off.
The Fly on the Wall
The Fly on the Wall
The fly’s story began much the same way that the story of any fly does, with irritation and subsequent aggression. A single, orange hoof had been thrown outwards in his direction. An obvious attempt to end the life of the fly, and for no other reason that the he buzzed when he performed his namesake activity.
It wasn’t the fly’s fault that he had ended up in this place, he had simply been looking for some nourishment, and perhaps a nice piece of rotting carrion in which his mate could lay their offspring. However, suddenly the fly had found himself in a prison. Usually, the fly could go wherever he wanted without hindrance. However now he was bumping into walls and floors and furniture. Every time he saw what looked like an exit, he would simply bounce off some sort of invisible force field, stopping his escape. The fly was helplessly, totally trapped.
“For goodness sake,” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed whilst shielding her food from the airbourne pest. Applejack flailed a hoof out wildly in an attempt to get rid of the annoying presence. However the endeavour was doomed to fail, it was almost impossible to kill a fly, everypony knew it. They had a knack for avoiding every attempt to end their pointless existences, no matter how well-timed they were.
Pinkie Pie arrived at the table with Applejack and Rarity’s orders and placed them on the table.
“Another fly?” Pinkie observed when her mouth was free of her friend’s plates,
“Unfortunately so darling,” Rarity replied, now mimicking Twilight’s actions to try and shield her treat from the insect. “I must say Pinkie, you do get a lot of them in here,”
“Yeah, I think it’s the smell of cakes,” said the baker, she picked up a menu from the table and began to swat at the fly repeatedly, “We’ve had so many customers complaining of flies landing on their food and then refusing to pay recently. We’re thinking of trying to get some sort of repellent.”
“Well it would cut down on the disturbances, and I'm sure Equestria wouldn't miss a couple of meaningless flies,” Twilight added, casting an unsavoury glance at the insect. Pinkie gave a few more swipes at the air before finally giving up on trying to harm the fly. After a few seconds it landed on a nearby wall, seemingly giving the friends some respite from its irksome buzzing. Pinkie sighed, but was quick to put a smile back on her face,
“Sorry about that girls, can I get you any drinks?” Her three customers considered this and then each gave an answer,
“Oh, a lavender tea would be divine, thank you darling,” Rarity answered with a serene smile,
“I'd kill for an apple juice,” Applejack chimed in.
“And I’ll just have an espresso please Pinkie," Twilight finished off the order and Pinkie took a small moment to note down the list.
“Ok, I’ll have them ready in a few minutes girls.” The three each bid the earth pony their thanks and then returned to the conversation the fly had so unpleasantly interrupted.
“So Rares, you were tellin’ us about that order y’all are workin’ on,” Applejack began, and Rarity happily told them about her latest batch of dresses.
The fly was incredulous about what the pink one had said. As if he would be attracted by the their disgusting food! The fly would take a nice pool of nectar over their unpalatable cakes and tarts any day, and he was offended they didn’t know it. They swatted at him like it was nothing. One misjudged wingbeat, one single messed-up manoeuvre and he would be nothing more than a dark smear on one of their great clumsy hooves. That certainly didn't sound like nothing to him!
And that purple one! Meaningless she said! Those ponies wouldn't know meaning if it smacked them in the face. They sit, whiling the hours of the day away on social eating and pointless conversation, hanging their deadly sticky-papers and spraying their poisonous sprays. It was certainly not meaningless to kill a fly. Was he not alive? He felt, did he not? Of course he did!
‘To hell with this!’ thought the fly, he should be out trying to find food, not stood on this wall weathering insults. He flexed his wings and prepared to take off. He pushed with his legs against the surface, then beat his wings. Once he had achieved flight, the fly reoriented himself to try and find the exit to this place…
“Ah! Not again!” Twilight cried as the irritating fly from before buzzed around her head.
“My goodness this thing must have some sort of death wish!” Rarity exclaimed, before letting out a shriek when the fly landed on her face.
“Tarnation! You’d think it’d have something better to do with life than annoy us!” Applejack growled whilst stabbing at the air repeatedly.
“Truth is Applejack,” Twilight took a break to quickly shield her cake from the fly and give it a withering glare, “We don’t really know enough about flies to comment,”
“That makes sense,” Applejack replied, “Why would anyone want to study a pointless little fly that only wants to annoy decent folk like us?” the friends shared an irritated nod, each fixing the buzzing nuisance with a death glare in hopes it might suddenly combust. Such hopes were unfounded of course, and the fly went to settle on another wall.
"Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted," Rarity began.
So that’s what they think a fly’s purpose is, to annoy? How dare they say such things! The accusation was as incredulous as it was flagrantly insulting. The fly did a lot more than just annoy ponies! Did he not feel, did he not dream?
Wait...
Of course the fly felt, he felt all the time. However, with a growing sense of worry the fly realised he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt anything other than a compulsion rooted in simple physicality. Hunger. Weariness. The desire to mate. Worst of all, the fly couldn’t remember the last time he dreamt. His nights seemed to be a mechanical routine of simply finding a spot, sleeping and then awakening to find nourishment once again.
The fly didn't like the idea that his life had no meaning, but he was one and they were many. Did his opinion on his own worth matter the same as their's? Because if so the vote was currently sitting at him being worthless. Or, was his own opinion intrinsically worth more since they were talking about him in the first place?
It could only be one or the other…couldn’t it? That was how the fly’s life worked, he was either hungry or not hungry. Flying or not flying. Mating or not mating. Things tended to work in black and whites, on or off, simple, easy and binary. Giving it greater thought however, the fly could think of some things that could work more subtly. Such as anger. Anger was more elusive than hunger, this was certain. Hunger was needing to eat, ergo when the fly wanted food, he was hungry. That was it, there was no connotations or hidden clauses, hunger was as simple as the sentence he had just thought.
Anger however was prompted by a menagerie of sources. If another fly was trying to copulate with his mate, then the fly got angry. If another fly was stealing food he saw first, then the fly was angry. Therefore could anger be summed up as a response of negative feeling to a perceived wrongdoing to the fly?
No this also couldn’t be, as the fly was also angry when he saw other flies being swatted. Or ponies being unpleasant to each other. Anger also couldn’t be expressed as a response to any wrongdoing as the fly got angry when the days were shorter in the winter, or when he flew into a wall by mistake. Those examples were not of wrongdoing. And added to this, each different event prompted an anger of different feel and intensity!
Hunger was like an on-and-off switch. Anger, on the other hand, was like a large switchboard of various buttons and dials. The concept of a meaningful life, however, was in a whole other class compared to anger. The fact that he had been stationary, merely trying to fathom the idea for so long was testament to that. If one little emotion could be so complex, maybe life's meaning could be determined by both yourself and others at the same time?
This realisation however had not helped the fly work out whether his own life was meaningful. He surely considered it to be meaningful enough to demand ponies didn’t try to murder him for simply buzzing. However if meaning was simultaneously internal and external, then surely the opinions of the ponies who attempted said assassination also had a say?
This was too much for the fly to consider, he still didn’t even know what constituted meaningful, only two sources from which it might stem. He supposed to him, meaning had always been to simply live a good life, to try your best to be a positive influence on the world while avoiding being a negative one. However was that the universal definition?
Thinking about all this had made the fly’s head hurt, and so he stopped for a moment. Suddenly, an idea sprung to him. Maybe if he were to get closer to the violent ponies from before, their discussion would lend some assistance in alleviating his crisis considering it had started it.
To avoid another unjustifiable rage from the brutes, he elected to forgo the flying which so inexplicably bothered them. He instead settled for a simply scurry along the wall. It was slow, but it was a damn sight safer than attempting his favourite method of locomotion with that lot around.
"Anyway dears enough about all those dress orders, what do the two of you suppose to the Princess’ invitations for the Grand Galloping Gala this year?” Rarity began, “I must say I don’t know if I quite fancy it myself. Last year was, shall we say, both 'Grand' and 'Galloping' enough to last a life time.”
“I know what you mean Rares,” Applejack agreed, “I think I’d rather just spend it with y'all, like we should've done last year.”
“Hmm, I don’t know girls, the princess did invite us personally,” Twilight countered. The friends considered this for a moment, before Applejack spoke up.
“Well I don’t rightly see any point in doing something we’re gonna hate just to keep everypony else happy. I’m sure the Princess won’t mind Twi’, she said herself that the Gala is always awful.”
“That’s right dear, even as the element of generosity, I know you can’t just put everypony before yourself all the time. Can you imagine living without ever giving a thought to yourself? It would be miserable! You’re a great pupil to the Princess and I’m sure she’ll be fine with us not making a second appearance at that dreadful Gala.” Rarity reassured the visibly nervous bookworm, who seemed to calm at her friend’s words.
“I suppose you’re right girls. Besides I agree with Applejack, it would be much nice to just spend the day with all our friends.”
“Then again there’s no reason we shouldn’t send her a card, I could even offer to do her dress for her!” Rarity suddenly exclaimed excitedly.
“I think you’re right Rarity,” Twilight concurred, “If she’s stuck at the Gala I think it’s the least we can do to try and make it a little better, I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”
“I could send her some apples from the orchard.” Applejack added, prompting nods from Twilight and Rarity.
Unfortunately, their conversation had done little to aid the poor fly, who was now stuck on the issue of who had more say about meaning. Was it ponies or flies? There were definitely more flies than ponies in the world, the fly himself had had more siblings than there were ponies in this entire village.
However, the ponies' version of meaning seemed to be the one that was dominant. He watched these ponies every day, in their gigantic cities and opulent palaces. They ruled nearly the entire world, clearly they must be doing something right. What about flies? When they said he was meaningless, did they mean to a pony? To a fly? Did they mean totally meaningless, objectively meaningless?
The fly didn’t strive for anything a pony would consider meaningful. His hope came in different forms but it was all expressed as the simple hope to survive. All creatures shared that, that was nothing special. Surely something so unremarkable and basic was not the hallmark of a meaningful existence.
As he thought more and more, his depression grew. He compared himself to these enormous creatures sat before him, this one made incredible clothes, that one worked magic. The orange pony made things grow from the very earth itself! How could a little fly even hope to compare to all that?
“…So in the end I told him, it's all well and good if you can get switched site binding on the rotaxane, but unless that bad boy creates mechanical work then don't get too attached to your funding!” Twilight finished, before bursting into laughter, it was evident to Applejack and Rarity that the librarian was under the impression she had just said something terribly funny. Out of courtesy, the two ponies laughed with her friend.
“Wow Darling, I had no idea that, erm... supramolecular chemistry can be such a wild ride.” Rarity offered with a forced smile.
“Erm yeah, ah mean, who forgets to put a minus before the lag?” Applejack too replied to the unicorn, who fixed her with a quizzical look.
“Don’t you mean log?”
“Ain’t that what ah said?” Applejack retorted,
“Well, it might be a little beyond us but we're just glad that you're happy darling. How goes things at the farm Applejack?"
"Well it's the darndest thing Rares, seems like the zap apples are gonna be coming in earlier again, a whole month earlier than last year! I don't think I need to tell you what that means!"
Twilight and Rarity stared blankly at the farmer, indicating that she did in fact need to tell them what that meant.
"Well, the zap apples used to always come in the dead of summer, but now? It looks like they're plum ready to move to spring! If this keeps up, we could see our first winter zap apples before long!"
"Oh no Applejack! What will you do?"
"Haha I thank you for the concern Twilight but this could be a good thing. Who doesn't a spiced cider to warm the cockles when it's snowing outside? I mean sure changing up what we did with the zap apples would be daunting, but it's exciting too!" Twilight and Rarity listened while smiling good-naturedly at the farmer's enthusiasm.
"I can't imagine ever being able to do all that darling," Rarity said through dainty mouthfuls of cake, "Honestly, running Sweet Apple Acres seems to be so complex. I don't know how you get it all done!"
"Well it's not like all your fancy dresses are exactly simple there Rares. Honestly, looking at them, I'm not sure how most of them even hold together. And that's not even getting onto all that stuff Twilight was just talking about," Applejack cast a glance at the scholar who had began blushing lightly.
"Well I for one still love to hear everything you girls are up to," Twilight responded, beaming.
"Oh absolutely dearie! It's never about understanding everything, as long as you're happy that each of your friends is happy!" Each mare smiled warmly at the sentiment. They let the pleasant silence resume for a second before carrying on with their conversation.
The fly was dumbfounded, he had all but given up hope that their endless prattling would yield anything useful, but there it was. Not a single one of their meanings was the same as the other's but it didn't matter. The dressmaker still asked the farmer about her life and was asked in return, the same for the magician. If each was removed from their own lives and placed in the other's, maybe then they would consider their lives to be without true meaning. But as it stood, each just coexisted in their own state of meaning, and they were all happy with that.
Maybe they were right? Until today, the fly had never really considered the possibility that his life was meaningless. Sure, he was in a bit of a rut as of late but he was satisfied enough. He had let these creatures convince him, yet they themselves admitted that was the wrong way of going about it. And if their friends not understanding them wasn't enough to sway each pony from their own purpose, why should the fly let an enemy sway him from his?
Sure, he couldn't make dresses or grow things. He certainly couldn't work any magic. But he could fly! He could fly and mate and live to do it all another day. This is what he had always done, and you know what? He enjoyed it as well! To hell with what they said, this was meaning enough for the fly! He beat his wings furiously, drawing from a newfound well of vigour to try and leave this place once and for all and get back to-
WHACK
Each mare at the table sighed with relief as Pinkie finally silenced the annoying insect with a well placed menu. The baker lifted it tentatively and cringed at the mess beneath.
"I'll just go and get a fresh one of these for the table," she said while serving each of her friends their drink.
"Thank Celestia that's over," Twilight began, "Or should we say thank Pinkie?"
"Say whatever you like, just make not to tell Fluttershy!" the earth pony giggled, and everyone at the table laughed in response.
