Read Fish in the Sky for Free Online

lie untouched on the desk, and when I open them and go over the homework I was supposed to do, I get pins and needles in my forehead. I suddenly feel sleepy. I yawn and stare into a blissful void that no thoughts can penetrate. Mom keeps yakking on the phone in the hall, and her voice carries up the stairs into my room. “Sure,” she says, “sure.” The sun shines through the window until it is veiled by a cloud. Two little flies have woken up too early. One of them is dead already and lies on its back with its legs in the air. The other is still plodding away at trying to break through the glass. He clambers up, falls, and starts all over again. Again and again, and maybe he’s thinking,
It’s bound to give in sooner or later.
    What’s the point of flies? Some of them are born to nothing but a life on a windowsill, spend their entire lives walking up and falling off the same pane of glass, and then die on that same windowsill. Could it be that God created a special type of fly for windowsills? Were these tiny, subtle creatures really solely designed for the purpose of soiling human windowsills? Imagine: a whole species, a whole branch of the insect family, does nothing else in its lifetime. And no individual is of any importance because it’s immediately replaced by another. So even though one of them falls and wriggles its legs, it makes absolutely no difference. Another will take its place. Are men maybe flies on God’s windowsill? Does he sit like I am now, watching human flies scrambling up his window? And if so, can he see me? Am I of any importance? And why am I here, at this desk, in this house, in this country? Why am I the one who is here? And who am I actually? A boy from the west side of town? Why not an Indian, a Frenchman, or an Australian Aboriginal boy? Or a girl?
    My mom’s hand touches my shoulder, and the flood of thoughts in my head grind to a sudden halt. I turn to her, and she looks at me with a probing air.
    “What?” I ask, brushing the hair off my forehead.
    “Is everything OK?”
    “Yeah.”
    “We need to talk,” she says, sitting on my bed, scanning the room for dirt and dust. She stands up again to pick some dirty socks off the floor, sits on the bed once more, and begins to talk, glancing up at the curtains behind me as if she is trying to make up her mind whether the time has come for them to be washed again or not.
    “Well, I was talking to Ben — you know, my brother? Now, it’s such a long time since you’ve seen him, of course; you were so small. Anyway, he’s sending his daughter to stay with us, Gertrude. You should remember her — you played together when we went up north that year; her mother’s been institutionalized — ah, it’s a sad story, the things that woman’s been through. Anyway, Gertrude is coming south and is going to live with us at least until the spring. She won’t be at your school; she’s three years above you — no, four — no, three. Can’t remember now. Anyway, she’ll be staying with us.”
    She folds the dirty socks together and then unfolds them again, stands up and walks away, chucks them into the dirty laundry, reappears with crossed arms, and leans against the door frame.
    “Won’t that be great?” she asks.
    I obviously have no say in the matter. All the decisions have already been made, and I’m expected to give them the stamp of approval with a smile on my lips.
    “And where’s she going to sleep?” I ask.
    “In the little room here,” says Mom, pointing at the door to the room we use as a storeroom, inside my room.
    “In there? Why?”
    “Well, the girl has got to have some privacy,” says Mom, pretending not to understand the full meaning of my question.
    “How old is she?” I ask.
    “Seventeen — no, sixteen — no, seventeen, I think,” she says distractedly.
    I swing on the chair and fix my gaze on the dead fly on the windowsill.
    “Why does she have to live with us?” I rasp out, and start fiddling with