In conversation with Lydia Davis’s ‘Mice’
Fruit flies live on my window sill but do not flock to my kitchen. I am cautiously happy but cannot understand why they do not come into the kitchen where I have pellets set, as they swarm my neighbors' kitchens. Although I am cautiously happy, I am also flustered because the fruit flies behave as though it is not a kitchen but a sacred temple. What’s even more confusing is that my house is no temple; it is easily messier than my neighbors' houses—especially the one with a cat, a dog, and a baby. Here, there are more cups with shriveled tea bags lying around the counters, more peanut shells and bits of chapati scattered on the floor, and peels of onions and garlic pods stuck to the sides of the drawers. In fact, there is so much food spilling around the kitchen creating little hills of more food I can only think the fruit flies themselves feel beaten. Or perhaps they are embarrassed for me and don’t want to compound my humiliation with their presence. Or perhaps they are faced with a task so beyond their extensive experience that they rather not wrap their fruit fly heads around it, killing whatever joy that remained of their short lives. The best they think they can do is wait on their window sill home, where they can give me withering looks, transferring their shame and annoyance onto me hoping that I tidy the kitchen just enough for them to scavenge calmly without any pressure.
Roopa lives in Dubai, U.A.E. Some of her short stories have been published in Bending Genres, Tiny Molecules, Bath Flash Fiction Anthology (forthcoming). Her middle-grade fiction, Chandu and the Super Set of Parents has been published by Fitzroy Books.
This is hilarious! 😂
ReplyDeleteHaha.
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