Sitting in the backseat of a cramped pick-up truck, my right cheek is firmly pressed against the window. The rolling green hills and winding roads of wherever we are slide by as I attempt to drown out, with my iPod, “Da Funk” that my grandmother and great-grandmother were currently enjoying. We are on our way to a church. A tiny church nestled somewhere in Valdosta. Why this church is any different from the plethora of small churches in Lake City is beyond my comprehension.
In all honesty, I’m just here for the free food at a Chinese buffet after the service.
“Oh, would you look at that, Mo? They blah blahed the blah blah!”
“Oh you mean the old blah that blah blah blah?”
“The same one.”
"Well blah diddy blah blah….”
This is the typical conversation between them. Peppered with what they used to do and when they used to do them. I turn my iPod up.
“Lysie, you’re gonna be deaf if you keep listening to that music so loud!”
I return the volume to a lower setting. “Well we are almost there.” My grandmother cheers. Thank God, I think as we transcend the barren grassland and enter an area with shops and buildings. She turns left and right aimlessly down narrow neighborhood streets until we reach a white wooden structure with a steeple towards the clouds. She now hunts for a nice parking spot under a shady tree. The white oak in the far right corner of the lot beckons at her attention so she decides to park there. When we finally halt, the keys are ripped out of the ignition and the truck sputters its last breath while we exit our respective doors.
I see middle-aged women coming towards us wearing over-sized hats and three piece dresses of all vivid colors. My grandmother and her mom recognized them instantly and waved them over. I decided that this would be a good time to practice my gnarled-root balancing routine while they caught up on the events in each other’s lives. While teetering on a particularly slim branch, I hear my introduction to the conversation. “That’s my granddaughter, Lyssa.” (Really? Why do I even have that first “A” in my name? Everyone drops it off anyway.) Fortunately, I have a planned course of action for these situations. I wave at the women and tell them my life story. “I’m 17, I’m a senior in high school, and I have no idea what I’m doing after I graduate.” The ladies coo at my sentence forming abilities before returning to my grandmother’s conversational grasp. This meet-and-greet process continues with different people throughout the arduous journey to the church’s front doors.
We enter the building, the cooling hum of the air conditioner helps us forget that we are in humid Georgia on a warm, August morning. The dingy beige walls that housed a collection of cobwebs met the dull dark hardwood floors. Rows of uncomfortable wooden pews lead up to the altar, the only decorated area of the church. It was blanketed with royal blue, gold, and white ribbons with coordinating flower arrangements, and even that had a fine coat of dust on them. While managing to keep her conversation going with yet another old lady that she used to know, my grandmother points to the pew that we will be seated in. I scramble to the end of the long, cold bench to snag a window seat.
The window was very peculiar; the top half was a stained glass mosaic of Jesus and his sheep while the bottom half looked more like the windows in someone’s home. The contrast between styles bewildered me momentarily as I studied it. Continuing the unkempt look, the window sill held lovely dead insects mixed with lint and dust on its wooden shelf. The view on the outside of the glass is just as exciting – parked cars and a few saplings.
The service started without me. I didn't even realize it until an exceptionally passionate part from the pastor snapped me to attention. He kept me concentrated on his words for a solid half hour before I saw something fluttering in my periphery. A poor fly was tapping the window repeatedly. I watched him intensely as he rams his head forcefully into the glass. His movements are like a pendulum, he’d back up before flying forward into the unyielding glass.
The fly is now picking up speed. His rhythmic pecking became erratic and more violent almost to the point that I believed the whole congregation could hear the vigorous tapping. The longer this act went on, the stranger it became. The fly isn't flying straight with a head-on collision anymore. He was now striking the glass with whatever body part would touch it first, be it his leg, or wing, or whatever. His rapidness was almost immeasurable now. The wings flapped faster than a hummingbird as he sporadically pelts the window with his body as he struggled in vain to enter the building. Without warning…
He stops.
The incessant tapping ends as his body drops from mid-flight. He crashes on the strip of wood under the window outside and finally rest.
I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited.
But there was no movement. The fly was dead. His demise was quite unexpected. Did he realize that he was dying and wanted to join his petrified brethren? Or maybe he wanted to confess his fly sins so that his fly soul can go to fly heaven?
The members of the church all stood up in unison for a prayer. I felt that it was best for me to pray for the recently departed fly. Hopefully his soul is freed from this earth, just like I hope to be freed from this church and eating some lo mein.
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