You might have heard a lot about how animals behave. You have probably heard something along the lines of the following: animals are neither good nor bad; they simply are. When a fox kills a chicken, we cannot consider this immoral. The fox has no sense of good or bad. It just acts as nature has evolved it to act.
Well, for the fox, I can agree. In fact, for most animals, I can agree. They are neither good nor bad. However, there is one creature which is indisputably, unequivocally, one hundred per cent, undeniably evil. Yes. This creature is bad. He knows he is bad. He likes being bad. And he will continue to be bad until someone swats him.
Maybe you’ve guessed it.
The horsefly.
You will never encounter a more insanely irascible insect. This dude is wrong. Just wrong. Look for as long as you like for any redeeming glimmer of goodness but you will find nothing.
Sometimes, you know, when you think about the ferocity of the tiger, or the lumbering menace of the rhinoceros, even though they are scary and would destroy you in an instant, you still have to admire them as animals. The terror they express is actually something beautiful.
Not so with the horsefly.
You cannot admire this thing. You can run from it, or fight it. But you will experience no feelings of appreciation for your enemy. You will feel only the strongest urge to wipe him from the face of the planet.
The common house fly is an annoying creature, but it is nothing compared to the horsefly. The common house fly will buzz around you and land on your food. It will fly into your eye. It will annoy your ears. But it is doing this for a reason. It wants to eat. It wants to drink. It can smell your earwax and it knows that your eyes are watery. It has a purpose.
The horsefly is not like that.
The horsefly waits out of sight until it sees that you are distracted. He doesn’t want your food. He has no interest in your earwax. He only wants to make you suffer.
He waits and watches.
He sees that you are happy.
Maybe you are filling up a water balloon, getting ready for a good time in the summer in the park.
He waits.
You laugh and you play and you feel good about life.
He is watching you, seething in evil.
You shout something about this being the best day of your life and you throw your arms up in the air, letting the water balloon go, a big smile on your face.
The horsefly observes the perfect confluence of extreme happiness and exposed skin. He hones in on the soft vulnerable skin which you have revealed under your left arm. The arm which remains raised, as the water balloon catapults away.
There is a moment, a very brief moment, when, in the abandon of a summer’s day like this, a person might possibly indeed feel as happy as they are ever going to be.
And then
In this moment
The horsefly attacks.
His aim is perfect. His mission is unshakable. He wants pain, pain and more pain. Like a crazed kamikaze fighter pilot, he tears in out of the blue, zipping along a minute jet stream faster than a bullet. He is foaming at the mouth. He is screaming into the wind. He is wide-eyed and manic.
As he gets closer to you, he prepares the landing gear. His legs fold inwards, ready to latch themselves onto your oblivious body. His piercing mouthparts are like scimitars, like lances, like deadly swords.
Voop!
He lands.
He is quick. In complete glee, he sinks his daggers into your skin. Everything then for you seems to happen at once. Pain. Your day ruined. The smile wiped clean off your face.
Instinctively, you smack yourself. This really is the ultimate humiliation. He actually forces you to hit yourself. Talk about adding insult to injury. This is one cold, cold twist to the tale. There is no need for it at all. Can you imagine a fox catching a rabbit and then forcing the rabbit to punch itself in the face? Can you? Of course it is ridiculous. But this is exactly what the horsefly does. What a character.
Of course, before your hand reaches the brutal wound he has sketched, the horsefly is gone. You will see him, though. Oh yes, he wants you to see him. He wants you to know that it was he.
But you will be too late.
He will hide again. Near you. Tantalizingly near you. Near enough that you could easily reach out and smack him dead. But you will not. You will not see him.
But you might
You just might
Hear him giggle.