Kill The Flies

I live in sub-tropical Australia. We have flies, dinosaur cockcroaches, bugs I have never seen before, snakes, lizards and spiders — so many spiders. Generally I leave them all be unless the poisonous ones get into the house. Then they’re going to die.

Once when my babies were young a red belly black snake made its way to my back door. A red belly black is one of the most venomous snakes on the planet. I took a shovel and chopped its head off and then as tradition follows, slung the body over the fence to let everyone know that they were in the area. We were living in a farming community at the time and it was just what was done.

When I told my urban friends what I had done I was admonished, shamed and accused of murder. How could I kill a snake. You shouldn’t kill snakes they are endangered. Blah blah blah.

As a mother, if something poisonous threatens my children, it’s gonna die. Period. If something enters my house and pisses me off like flies, they’re gonna die. If you scare the shit out of me, like cockroaches at night, mice, massive unidentified spiders, you’re gonna die.

I had an argument with a woman who would not kill anything. She would take the cockroaches outside, capture spiders in bottles and put them outside, open the doors to let the flies out. OK. She couldn’t bear the idea of taking a life. OK. Did she eat meat? Every single day.

Fuck off.

I’m a vegan for the health benefits and because finally I don’t have anyone in my life telling me that I have to eat meat. I’ve never been able to reconcile it from the time I saw a lamb slaughtered at the age of 14. But I always did my dad said and he told me to eat the lamb chops for dinner so I did. My husband wouldn’t hear of me not eating meat, so I ate it. The health nurses told me I had to feed meat to my children or I would be reported so I did. Now my children are all adults (2 are vegans and one on the verge), my husband is long dead, and I am vegan.

But, I kill those flies.

I am by no means the world’s greatest housekeeper, but my house is generally clean. The other day I woke up to find thousands of maggots all over my house, under furniture, under cushions, all throughout the house. In hindsight I can tell you that this was an anomaly and warning that heavy rains were coming, but at the time I did nothing short of puke and panic.

I am still killing flies that have hatched from maggots I did not find and they are all going to die my friends.

Judge me if you must but if you woke up to maggots in your house, you would be killing them all as quickly as possible too.

I’m a straight shooter, complex and maybe contradictory at times, but I’m older than most of you reading this and there is reason in all of my madnesses.

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