I'm Dying

Something in me died today, but I'm not quite sure what.

I had lunch with a friend, accomplishing both business and pleasure.  Our relationship compliments each other's strengths AND weaknesses; yin and yang.  I'd like to say we balance each other out.  We enjoy many commonalities and discuss many differences.  Selfishly speaking, I wouldn't want to be outside our circle; it'd make me envious.

We both enjoyed the same salad on an outdoor patio, basking in the summer sun and the conversation.  Our words, purely confidential, were captured by a voyeur strategically positioned between us.  Amazingly enough, this creeper literally planted itself on the table's umbrella shaft to pick up the entire conversation from both parties.  A few times I stopped myself before speaking; a small part of me felt that the uninvited guest would relay our every word back to their base for analysis and eventual prosecution.

I was then reminded by The fly.  That fly.  Did I see the fly, or was it I heard the fly?  Hmmm...ugh, my English literature lessons had quickly faded from my memories years prior.  I could barely remember the content, but I did remember the symbolism.  Something was dying during our lovely lunch.  Everything around us seemed so perfect, except for that ominous fly.  What will happen next?

Dying I heard a fly buzz when I died;       The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air       Between the heaves of storm. The eyes beside had wrung them dry,       And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king       Be witnessed in his power. I willed my keepsakes, signed away       What portion of me I Could make assignable,-and then       There interposed a fly, With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,       Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then       I could not see to see. Emily Dickinson, "I heard a fly buzz when I died," Poets.org,  Academy of American Poets, Accessed 17, July 2014.