I must confess that I was extremely disappointed to find that we had an infestation of tiny flies. I had thought there was only one of them. And I found myself unexpectedly getting fond of him, too. How could anyone not get fond of something so tiny that was continuously outwitting us? Continuously dodging us and escaping all our best efforts to annihilate him. I don't know anyone who wouldn't admire such agility. Not to mention ingenuity. I certainly did. Despite myself, I would find myself hoping that he'd escape, even as we were swatting him. And he did. Every time.

At that point, when I still thought there was only one of him, I suggested that we might as well adopt him as a pet. I told this to Chuck who didn't seem to like the idea.

Why not? I wanted to know. We can't get rid of him. We'll never get rid of him. He's too quick.

Chuck conceded that this was true. He didn't seem too pleased about it, either. Having tried innumerable times to swat the damn thing. This fly was hard enough to see in the first place. But then, after you finally did spot him, no matter what you did and no matter how you tried, he eluded you. Just like that. It's the air currents, Chuck said. He's so small that he's carried away on the air currents.

He would actually make an ideal pet, I told Chuck, hoping to convince him. No bother at all, I pointed out. Nothing to take care of. No need to feed him a thing. He was absolutely trouble free. And always there whenever you might want some company around.

"We should give him a name," I suggested. "Do you have any ideas?" But if he did, Chuck wouldn't tell me. "He's so quick," I said. "You can never tell when he's coming. You never know where he's gone. He's like a ghost. Let's call him Casper." There used to be a cartoon character called Casper the Friendly Ghost when I was young.

So we started to call the tiny little fly Casper. This Casper was very friendly, too. Just like his namesake. He would always show up when we were eating. Sometimes he would land on the kitchen table or on one of the cabinets. Sometimes there he'd be on a paper napkin or on Chuck's shirt. One of us would always try to swat him. We never could.

It got so that whenever I came into the apartment I found myself wondering where Casper would be. It got so that I even looked forward to finding him. I looked forward to swatting him and marveling about how he would escape this time. It never occurred to me that he wouldn't.

But one night, when we spotted Casper on the edge of the kitchen cabinet, he wasn't there alone. There with another tiny fly alongside him.

"That's what I was afraid of," Chuck grumbled, scouring about in one of the cabinets for insect spray. He located a can, but it was the wrong kind of spray. Chuck didn't think he should use it.

"I think you should," I said sadly. "It works on flying insects." I felt sad. Because the truth is that I felt a little betrayed by Casper. Now that he wasn't alone. Now that there were more of him. I mean, I couldn't even tell which one he was anymore. Or which one he ever was. Or if he even was who I thought he was in the first place.

So now it seems as if he might have been just an ordinary fly all along. Or rather, lots of ordinary flies. There's no way of knowing.

So far we've sprayed two or three of them. And I realize there will never be any way of knowing if one of them is Casper. Or even whether Casper has ever existed. And never any way of knowing, if he really had existed, where he is now or whether he escaped.

So you see what I mean about being disappointed to find that we had an infestation.

"What are you writing?" Chuck asked when he saw me at the computer.

"I'm writing about Casper," I told him.

"You're writing about a fly?" Chuck asked. He seemed surprised. "Let's look at the benign side," he said, trying to cheer me up. "There are lots of Caspers. Maybe the Caspers are part of a Fibonacci series. Maybe the Caspers are trying to demonstrate a mathematical proof."

I appreciated his effort. I knew that he was being sweet. Even though what he said was silly. But he was trying. He knows that I like math more than I like flies. In fact, I don't like flies at all. The only fly I ever liked was Casper.

October, 1998
BB