There laid a dead fly in the windowsill, and I could not help but notice. It was such a strange notion: to be so close to freedom, but kept from it by means a fly – of course – couldn’t possibly understand. Only to throw yourself against it in desperate struggle, for what? Because reasons even more ungraspable compelled you to? Yet there it laid, died in the midst of a futile struggle.
If only a hand had been so attentive as to lift the window, it would have escaped; or perhaps it would not have understood what it meant and flown entirely the wrong way, insofar that it could not grasp the concept of the window altogether. Death and life were then only incidents of fate, and although it could affect it by it’s actions, it had no idea what or how or why – so did it really matter?
Then was I like the fly? Aimlessly struggling in the misguided idea I could somehow affect my fate, and even if I would, hopelessly unaware of the effect my actions had. It was a humbling proposal; a wisp floating in my mind for a tranquil second in front of that window on an overcast November afternoon – and for a moment I believed I was as afraid as the fly surely must have been.
But then I shook off that notion for the nonsense it was; the thoughts of a weak man, and it was the weak that struggled hopelessly against fate. Surely I was gifted with better faculties, and I understood the window for what it was. I was not the fly that laid dead below, I was the hand that could have lifted it.
No, not even that.
I was fate.
Content with that conclusion, I turned away from the windowsill.
When I took my leave, I was careful to avoid the lifeless body on the floor.
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