Ready for another lesson?

That day, Dad was driving the car and I was in the backseat, getting annoyed. Half a minute of that 2 hour trip had proved to be a voyage of self-discovery, however. I had understood sitting there, that two things get me paranoid, bumpy roads and houseflies. And now, sitting in my room with my elder brother, I am reminded of those very moments.

Where did it go?!

My brother is looking at me but I know he wouldn't care of helping. He'll sit there and enjoy the pandemonium I'm in. If I know him well, soon he'll start playing "Vicarious" by "Tool" and then will sing at the top of his voice, "vicariously I, live while the whole world dies", and laugh.

But where the hell is that small shit?!

"That..." I begin but pause since no appropriately harsh word strikes my mind. "That one-paise-worth shit!"

My brother snickers, keeping his head down, focusing on the laptop screen as if he is scoring ten girls there (being him, he might even be doing that) while I angrily pace the room with a rolled-up newspaper in my hand.

There isn't a lot of room to pace, but I manage. Half the room is occupied by the king-size bed. There's an almirah, a computer table, a shelf full of books most of which belong to my brother, a plastic chair on which sits the dirty laundary and a synthesizer on its stand. The bed is covered with my sketch book, colours, newspapers and my spread-eagled brother.

And I see it.

"Don't move!" I shout. "Your leg!"

He doesn't move.

On his toe, like the star on top of a christmas tree, sits my target.

This is one star which won't go supernova, my inner voice says. It'll go flat, on my brother's toe. Flat star theory.

I'm amazed at the quality of the joke I just made.

And then suddenly, it isn't there.

"Huh, what?" My brother asks with an inncocent face, shaking his entire body from top to bottom to move his laptop just an inch to the left.

"Damn! You!" I glare at him while he still shows off his innocence. "I told you not to move! I yelled! That shit is killing me, here!" I wander my eyes around the room but to no avail. The small shit is lost again.

"Damn! I'd have killed it!" My brother is just sitting there however, chuckling, and I realise now. "You knew all along! That fly was on your toe and you knew all along! You were just enjoying the annoyance on my face!" I fume. "Curse you to hell."

He guffaws then but says nothing and goes back to his "girls".

"You're next in line; after this fly."

And it buzzes past my face!

I follow it and find it perched on the computer table on the mouse pad. In open.

"It's not a fly, really." My brother says.

"Won't be, soon. Dead fly." I whisper as my right arm raises with the rolled newspaper while my eyes stay on the fly.

"If you swat it—"

Swat!

I lift the newspaper and find it. My adversary, no more.

"Yes! Did you see how quick I was?!" I exclaim. "What were you saying?"

"If you swat it, they'll fine you and send two more." He says with as much seriousness as he can muster, looking straight into my eyes.

"Some horror story, you read this from?" I laugh.

"I mean it. The fine is five thousand rupees and one week imprisonment. Really. And they'll send two more." He says. "Watching you will be funnier then." He chuckles.

"Who is "they"?" I play along.

"The government, of course." He says, narrowing his eyebrows.

"Yeah well, I'm in a good form today." I say, picking up another newspaper from the shelf and rolling it in my left hand. "Ready. For. Another. Lesson?" I ask the upcoming flies which will never come.

"Copy cat." My brother snickers and goes back to his laptop.