Hansel eyed the compost bucket on the counter in the break room. A few fruit flies twirled above it, caught in each other’s gravity.
“Just tell me what you know!”
The flies continued their dance, unperturbed by Hansel’s outburst. He stomped back to his corner office with twenty-foot walls of glass. He could see two states away and it seemed like he was hovering above the city, waiting for something to happen.
***
As a child, Hansel’s mother slapped him if he told her the flies gave him a message. Despite this he didn’t stop. The information created a burning sensation in his mind. The longer he waited to share what he knew, the greater the pain became. Sometimes the information was for a specific person, other times anyone would do. As a young boy, the messages were purely domestic.
“Remind Mom to buy dog food at the store.”
“The Hamburger Helper will give everyone the runs.”
“Alvin put his blanket in the air vent in the living room.”
As Hansel’s world became a bit larger, so did the content of the messages.
“If you leave your bike in the driveway on Thursday, it will be stolen.”
“An air balloon overhead is frightening the neighbor’s dog.”
“Mr. Skarn across the street died. Nobody has found him yet.”
Although he was proved correct about Mr. Skarn, his mother didn’t apologize for slapping him when he told her about him. “That is a horrible thing to say! You’re a little monster!”
Any type of fly could bring a message. House flies, fruit flies, blow flies, horse flies, hover flies, one’s that looked like tiny coffee beans, ones with tiger stripes, or any of the wide variety of flies that buzzing inside and out. Because of his gift, Hansel became acutely aware of all flying insects. His mother told him he had a bug phobia and to help him overcome it took him to an aviary. The beekeeper offered to outfit Hansel in a bee suit and hood but she said, “No, he has to learn to face his fears.” The keeper shrugged, accepted the one hundred-dollar bill she gave him and once she was safely in her car, pulled the lid off the beehive letting the busy little insects swirl out in a cloud. Hansel received no messages from the bees and suffered almost thirty stings before he could outrun them. After that, he kept the information the flies told him to himself.
Despite his mother’s stern hand, as the only adult in his life, he had a sort of love for her. His brother Alvin had Down Syndrome so took up most of his mother’s time, and since she couldn’t take out her frustration on him, Hansel became the target of her ire. Still, he enjoyed movie night on Saturdays when his mother made popcorn and they watched whatever was on the “Movie of the Week.” She once bought him a bike, always helped with his homework, and for his twelfth birthday bought him a guinea pig. He named her Stan.
“Why did you give her a boy’s name?”
“I dunno. I just like it.”
“I think it’s going to screw with its head. What is it, a transgender rodent? What the hell are they teaching you kids in school today?”
“You’ve seen my homework Mom. You know what they’re teaching me.” His mother smacked him.
“Don’t be fresh.” Rubbing his cheek Hansel decided his guinea pig’s name would remain to be Stan no matter what.
Hansel shared less and less with his mother. He never knew what would set her off, except that any information about flies or observations regarding his guinea pig brought the back of her hand. As a result, he kept any personal information from her and mostly talked about the weather or his brother Alvin.
Hansel wondered if he was alone in his fly telepathy. He tried to furtively observe if anyone else reacted to flies the way he did. He saw people trying to wave the insects away or chasing after them with a newspaper, so concluded nobody else was on good terms with the flies.
Initially, the messages came to him when one of the insects lit on his arm. It appeared all at once like a neon sign suddenly ablaze in his brain and grew hotter the longer it was left on. To extinguish the message Hansel had to take action to resolve it, such as removing his brother’s blanket from the air vent or remembering to not leave his bike in the driveway. The messages later branched out and appeared on TV, over the phone, or on the radio. The flies were careful to transmit only when no one else was watching or listening. He tried over the years to record or snap a photo of the messages, only to have the flies gently lift off into the air the instant before he clicked the shutter.
The flies never helped him in school, only offering information or predictions about the world at large. The prescient messages were useless until Hansel reached the age of eighteen and learned he could gamble or invest using the foreknowledge the flies provided. He built a small fortune gambling in Nevada, then eventually in Italy, Macau, and Singapore. Securing that money in off shore accounts, Hansel set up a venture capitalist firm and built a wide array of investments gaining a reputation for a nearly infallible instinct. Everyone knew he was quirky, which was more or less expected given his unique insights. When he insisted that all the windows in the office tower always be left open just a crack, nobody thought twice. When he paused when passing a pile of dog poop on the sidewalk to watch for any insects, it was assumed his autistic tendencies were upset by the site of feces. His demand that any office biodegradables be stored in an uncovered compost container in the break room, and only emptied on the weekend, probably had something to do with carbon credits.
As he became more successful, Hansel grew more impatient with the flies. As a child, nothing was at stake other than keeping the transmissions from his mother. With a financial empire other people relied on him for their fortunes, and the pressure grew. Yet the flies remained unhurried. The investors and his board expected regular updates and although initially patient with Hansel’s irregular pace, as more money came into play they became less understanding of his methods.
“I can’t rush my gut. The heart wants what it wants and my gut only knows what it knows,” Hansel told his COO.
“I hear what you’re saying, but if you can’t rush your gut, we may lose millions in taxes and penalties for not reinvesting our profits. And the board won’t be happy.”
“They’re never happy. It’s never enough!”
“What can I say? That’s Capitalism for you.”
The ongoing pressure is how Hansel found himself yelling at fruit flies in the break room. But no one else understood he was yelling at the flies. They thought he was upset with the people in the room when he yelled out, “Just tell me what you know!”
“What we know about what?”
“What?” Hansel replied, confused by their inquiry.
“What do you want us to tell you? We don’t understand.”
Hansel stormed out of break room, walking as fast as he could to the relative sanctuary of his breathtaking corner office. People were dazzled by the view but he only wanted the windows because they attracted flies, gently bumping against the glass as they tried to escape. He often stood near the glass, hoping one of them would whisper some wisdom in his ear. Gazing out over the city made him look noble and wise, enhancing his reputation to any passerby.
***
Hansel took good care of his mother and brother. They had side-by-side townhouses and Alvin worked at the coffee shop in the lobby of Hansel’s building. Alvin and Hansel had lunch together at least twice a week in Hansel’s office. Alvin always greeted him with a long hug and the same greeting, “Hey Hansel, how are you?”
“Pretty good. I got tuna fish or egg salad sandwiches, which do you want?”
“Can I have half of each?”
“Absolutely,” Hansel said as he started to unwrap the sandwiches. Already cut, he divided them up and handed one to his brother. In short order, flies started to gather, drawn in by the smell of the sandwiches. They ate quietly, both watching the flies circle slowly around them.
“Do you ever talk to the flies?” Alvin said.
“Do I what?” Hansel said, choking on a bite of tuna fish.
“The flies. Do you talk to them? Because I do and I thought maybe you did too.”
“Um, well, the flies tell me things,” he said, still trying to understand what was happening. “Have you always been able to talk to the flies?”
“I think so. At least as far as I can remember. Mom talks to them too.”
“What?” Hansel exclaimed. “Mom talks to the flies? What the fuck?”
“That’s not a nice way to talk. Especially about Mom.”
“Sorry. But when you say talk to the flies, are you just listening, or do you say things to them?”
“Both. They know a lot, but they like a nice conversation. Just like anybody else.”
Hansel paced back and forth, still holding the partially eaten sandwich in his hand. Trying to catch up to what his brother had told him.
“So, all this time that I’ve been listening, I could have been asking them things too?”
“Well yeah, it’s just good manners. A nice talk goes both ways. How else do you get the hot words out of your brain?” Alvin took a bite of egg salad, chewing as he looked at Hansel, then said, “Jeez, how did you get this big job if you don’t know that?”