FLIES

An actor walks across the stage. The audience laughs. The actor juggles, does a back flip, settles down, and falls asleep. A writer enters, typing frantically on a wireless keyboard. The audience says: “Ooooo…”

A director enters with a nurse, a jockey, a dead man, three priests, and nine brothers named Karaoke. They are followed by a hungry tiger.

The Karaokes spin plates around the sleeping actor. He wakes up, screams, and is eaten by the tiger.

A critic enters and proclaims the director immortal.

An artistic director enters and throws a net over the director. They fight until they are bloodied. They kill one another.

The writer throws away his keyboard and scribbles in his diary.

A literary manager examines the bodies on stage and files them in a Mammoth Book of Dead Things.

The literary manager, nurse, jockey, priests, Karaoke brothers, critic and tiger all die. The audience dies.

The writer announces to no one that he will no longer write.

Flies fill the stage. They eat all the rotten flesh. They lay eggs. The stage reeks and vibrates with their tiny music.

The writer sails to the only island on earth inhabited by non-theatrical flies. The writer heals his wounds with salt water and wallows in what he thinks of as the naïve charm of the blissfully uncultured flies.

Late one night, by the campfire, the flies open the writer’s diary. They read of his past adventures, and decide to put on a show to please him.