The fly on the wall sees all

Holden Blake

A boy sat down at his desk, he picked up a pen and began to doodle.
He drew a stick man with an upside down smile and then drew a grid over the top of it.
When he was quite satisfied, the boy cast his pen aside, allowing it to roll idly off the table and down onto the wooden floor. He stared at the stick man behind the bars for a while, and his upside down smile.
Then he realised he hadn't given the man any eyes. He reached for his pen but it was no longer there. The boy sighed, still staring at the face with no eyes.
He began to chew on his lip without being aware of doing so until he was just about able to taste the iron on his tongue. The taste grew stronger and became more bitter as he now, fully aware, gnashed his teeth harder against the flesh. He released when the pain became too uncomfortable, but smiled knowing that the anxiety had deserted him already.


His right hand slowly wandered to his face, he allowed his fingertips to freely grace the corner of his mouth before licking away the excess. As his hand retreated he stared in awe at the sight of the blood trickling down his fingers, accumulating in his palm and then splitting into small rivers as it slowly made its way down the length of his wrist. Just staring at it seemed to make him feel better somehow, take his mind off the problems facing him. He glanced back at his unfinished doodle and pulled the notebook onto his lap. He collected some of the red from his palm onto the nib of his left index.


Carefully, he took his newly inked finger and dotted two eyes on the circular anatomy of the stick man. Sitting back in his chair he looked at his finished piece with the faintest air of delight, for although the picture was marred by the huge scarlet eyes that proved much too big and engulfed most of the entire head, the work was finished. He ripped the page from it's spiral hinges and tore it once in half. Staring up into the lonely empyrean of his bedroom ceiling the boy closed his eyes thought hard about the terrible decision that lay ahead of him.


A man of about forty was sitting bleary eyed, his giant orbs fixed on the glowing box before him. He watched with extreme content, the moving pictures, the sounds it produced. This small rectangular box appeared to equip him with such a stimulus that he was able to sit there for hours upon end, devote long and listless nights of his life to it and yet still, remain perfectly appeased, never bored, never once having the inclination to do, or, more importantly, to want to do otherwise. There was a bag of potato chips nestled in the acropolis of his pot belly which he munched in mechanical movements; giving an embellished laugh at the newest spectacle to emerge on screen then lifting motorised hand full of chips to motorised mouth full of half-eaten chips, and so on and so forth as the night rolled on like every other, and he was completely fulfilled with all the world had to offer him.

And why shouldn't he be? Deputy Joe turner was an honest man, who did his job well, supported his family and paid his taxes. For him, that was more than enough of a contribution to the society in which he lived in order for him to have the small privilege of going home each night and unwinding in the soft blissfulness of fantastical life.


But what happens if we take the fly upstairs for a change?
What would happen if Joe, on the off chance during once of his toilet breaks would discard his beloved box, become strangely engrossed by the sight of this winged inset and perhaps travel with it upstairs and into the first open door it finds?

Then he would see his teenage son smiling down at his twisted art work, realise he kept his bedroom door for a reason and perhaps, just perhaps get the impression that something wasn't right.


"But alas to that", says the cold, hard wisp of reality. The same reality that Joe so hungrily puts to rest at the end of every shift. The same reality that now plagues the tortured mind of the person crying silently in the room directly above him. Perhaps Joe got it right when he told the boys at the station of old Mrs Dean and her forgetting about the trouble in her shed. Perhaps, as he said "For a woman like that, Ignorance really is bliss."

shiv

The last four paragraphs need work, but the rest is briliant.
The description and writing are excellent.
I think you need to work on the tie-in between the two characters and the transitions between paragraphs, but a great read!

Odaise Gaelach

The story is excellent. I'd like to read more of it.