The Fly

• Connor Metcalfe, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2022

In the heart of Sydney Australia, there lies a small bakery where two chefs named Jesse and Walter are finishing up for the night. Jesse, and Walter have both worked at the establishment for over two years, but have never seemed to run into any problems or food shortages. One night, when the sky is dark and gloomy, the two are just about to finish up for the night. They both have been working all day tirelessly and Jesse is eager to head home. “You mind if I head home? Plates are clean and everything’s good to go for tomorrow.” Walter doesn't move and just looks at numbers on a clipboard. “Hey, did you hear me?” Walter still does not answer, still watching the numbers. “Walter!” “Oh yes sorry.” He replies. “Wait-.” Jesse turns back around as Walter starts saying “No, no, this isn’t right. This can’t be right.” “What’s not right?” Jesse walks back over to Walter to realise he has a worrying look on his face. “The numbers are off! This is a disaster the food is going spoilt!” He quickly grabs the plates from the racks and runs off to the food pantry, quickly grabbing any food item he can find. “Yo what’s going on?” Jesse continuously asks Walter but he’s too busy to even glance back at Jesse. “Grab some plates Jesse! Help me with this!” They both start grabbing food and putting it on plates around the kitchen, this continues for a few minutes until all the food is out of the pantry. “What was that about man? I was just about ready to go home!” “The food was out of refrigeration for hours and is now contaminated. leave it out here for someone to clean it up.” Walt replies. He then walks to leave through the door and the collapses on the floor. “Walter!” Jesse goes to help him, while this is happening a fly enters through the door.
Jesse wakes up Walter “What happened?” “You fool, you collapsed and hit your head on the floor. You alright?” They then heard the slight buzz of a fly going past their heads. Confused and shaken by the sound, Walter quickly gets up and looks around. “Oh no.. don’t let me you let a fly in! It’ll contaminate the food!” Walter yells. “The food is already contaminated!” Jesse argues. “It can’t become anymore contaminated than it already is! Come on let’s put the food somewhere else. They start grabbing the plates again to put them in the pantry when the fly whizzes past Walter, startling him. He tries to smack the fly with the plate, instead dropping it and smashing it into a million pieces across the kitchen floor. “Forget the plates, just grab the food!” Jesse yells at Walter, now angry about the situation they got themselves in. The fly then lands on Jess leg, and he attempts to whack with a bag of bread slices, causing the bag to burst open and spill over the floor. “Agh! Let’s just get rid of the thing and be done with this!” Walter tells Jesse. He attempts to smack the fly on the side of the wall, missing and injuring it instead. He then attempts to hit it with the clipboard, missing and breaking it entirely in half. Now tired and in pain, he notices the fly is now on the ceiling, and takes his shoe off and throws it at it, causing the shoe to fly back down and hit him right in his nose and start to bleed. “Walter, you alright?” Jesse, concerned for Walter, offers him a tissue, which Walter rejects. “No. We just need to get rid of the fly before it contaminates everything and ruins the food.” He gets back up and immediately falls back down. “Walter, maybe you should give it up. The fly is just gonna have to stay in here.” “No, no, no.” Walter replies. “We have to get rid of the fly, we have… to.. get rid… of it.” Jesse sees the fly on the wall in front of him, then leaps at the fly, smacks it killing it instantly. “YEAH! You see that Walter!” He looks down to see Walter passed out from exhaustion on the cold kitchen floor.
Jesse leaves and heads home. In bed he starts to drift off to sleep, when suddenly he hears the faint sound of buzzing and loos up to see a small silhouette in his bedroom light.