A Fly at My Window

 

It was a beautiful day, if I remember it right. The sun was high in the sky; the sky was clear and crisp. A gentle breeze was blowing outside and I was working on my laptop. Suddenly I hear this buzzing sound. There is no need to elaborate on how annoyed I was. At one time or another, we have all been annoyed by a buzzing fly in our rooms; stubborn flies that have made it their mission to annoy us.

I tried to ignore it, of course. I tried to ignore its mere existence, the very acknowledgement that it was there in my room, at my window, buzzing away. But it was impossible. It flew from one corner of the room to another, buzzing off its abilities and stopping at the window. I sighed and got up. I opened the window to let it out. I grabbed a piece of paper and rolled it up. I tried to shoo the fly away towards the window. So there it was: a beautiful day, and me trying to get rid of a discreet noise and the source of that noise.

The fly wouldn’t have it. Right next to it an exit lay that would lead the fly to its window but it only jabbed at the window pressing itself against it. I gave it another shoo only for the fly to buzz off to another part of my room and then come back to the window and stop only a distance short of the exit. Needless to say, I was frustrated.

How could you not see the exit right there close to you? I asked the fly or to myself out loud. The fly looked desperate as it searched for a way to the outside world jabbing and restless at my window. But no, it seemed oblivious to the exit to that very world. And then this random realization hit my head. Are we all flies at a window at some point in life? The fly kept going to the window thinking of the world outside and looking for a shortcut from the window when in fact, the exit of the window was a little far away that it could not see. Is this what we do in real life, too? Do we try to find a shortcut to the things we want not bothering to look a little farther down the way where the actual path to that thing is? Are we all flies at a window looking for a way out?