Dolly and I are fighting the annual daddy long leg wars once more. With subtle differences.
I’m become content to watch them in their giddy dance around the room and against the window; they seem to be quite capable of killing themselves without my needing to fetch the swatter and rush around after them. There is always the time when they choose to fly into and around my face of course, and then they die. All in all, though, I have nothing special against them, and I enjoy the way they seem always to have one leg too many for the task at hand, and the spare one flicks and flails in the air, endlessly trembling, St Vitus to the T.
Dolly however will have no truck with them. There was a time when she chased them about the house with a fearsome glee, batting at them carefully so as to prolong her joy and their agony. Not any more. I think they irritate her more than anything now, and her battles are short and vicious. With one expert swipe she leaves them entirely legless, wriggling sadly, until I come along to finish them off. Dolly doesn’t show any interest in them at all once they’ve lost their legs, and it’s several years since I saw her actually eat one.
I’m sure there’s some keenly observed explanation as to why they come indoors, squeezing through ventilation gaps in the windows, but I really don’t care to know it, and far less to be instructed in it. For every wonder in the world there’s some earnestly analytical expert, often enough with thick spectacles and spots, who fails entirely to detect the infinite depth of my disinterest. I’m coming to the stage where I cannot in any circumstance tolerate an expert, gladly or otherwise. Fools, on the other hand, I’m beginning to find endlessly interesting. It’s all a matter of balance and compensation, I suppose.
Anyway. Today we have sunshine. A good, cheerful sunshine, not too hot, and the accompanying breeze not too cold. Crisp is the word. So soon as I finish here I shall open the blinds to let the sun shine in and sit quietly, letting the morning drift past me. Time enough to do my dusting this afternoon, when there will be no sunbeams to catch the pesky motes that rise into the air ready to fall once more over the wiped surfaces.
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dancing in the sunshine
here a leg, there a leg–
crane-flies in my window
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