A fly crawled on the glass outside of Patty’s bedroom. It was a fat blowfly speckled with green and purple, and not the prettier shades. There was a soiled quality to it. A garbage heap stain on the wings and too much red in the multifaceted eyes. It was the kind of fly that would look more at home crawling over the face of a dead animal on the side of the road.
The insect scuttled between the lines of rain that ran crookedly down the pane.
It had watched the woman inside open her first bottle of beer. Her second. Her eighth. It watched her throat bob as she swallowed, swallowed, swallowed. It watched as she stared at the dead face inked on her hand.
It watched her punch the wall, punch her own thighs, punch her face.
The fly watched her all through the storm.