Flies In Mud

Man Inspecting Dirt on Rainforest Floor

This week, Frank takes up an exciting new hobby…

Bored by stamps, coins, and foopball paraphernalia, I decided to collect flies in mud. I began my collection last Saturday, and what with one thing and another have not been able to devote as much time to it as I would have liked, so it is very much in what you could call its pupate stage. I have one fly trapped in mud, but have assembled much of the kit I will need to add to my collection, which I envisage becoming the finest in the world one day, if I stick at it.

Currently the collection is small enough to present no display problems. My fly in mud is resting on an ornate Frampton stand in my parlour. Few people these days designate one of their rooms as a parlour, but I do, and with reason. Some time ago, I had an astonishingly vivid dream in which a terrifying divinity – I think it may have been the hideous bat-god Fatso – appeared before me, shimmering, and roared “You will have flies in mud in your parlour!”

I do not always act upon instructions given to me by frightful gods in dreams, you understand, otherwise my life might be untenable. But I was happy to go along with Fatso, if indeed it was He, partly because, as I say, I was bored by stamps and so on, but partly, too, because it gave me a chance to redesignate one of my rooms.

There was a chance I had slightly misheard the spooky intonation in my dream, and that what the god had actually said was “flies and mud” rather than “flies in mud”. I pondered this for a while, before realising that the “in” would meet both cases, whereas if I went with the “and”, I might be at risk of mucking up what was quite obviously an important pointer to my future.

It is not difficult to find mud around where I live. I will not go into detail, but if you think about constant rainfall, unsurfaced rustic tracks, and the clopping of drayhorses back and forth morning, noon and night, you will get the idea. As for flies, they are plentiful, as they always will be in an area with a large number of illegal butcher’s shops. Time was I got involved in hopeless attempts to shut them down, or at least to stop them selling contaminated pork, but I had my arms broken and skull cracked once too often to continue with my civic duties. Now I try to do my bit by subsisting on a diet of peas and radishes and gooseberry fool. Very occasionally I have one of my pork cravings, but I have found I can satisfy it by carving a radish into the shape of a pig and using my imagination.

Of course, I use separate cutters and slicers for radish-carving and for hewing the tidy cubes of mud in which my flies are entrapped. Well, more accurately I should say “cube of mud in which my fly is entrapped”, for as I said, so far I have only had time to make a start on my collection. The cutter-slicer is one of the crucial elements of my kit, which also includes a Bolsover scope, tinted contact lenses, pincers, an illustrated fly identification pamphlet, and a modified pippy bag. Making the necessary adjustments to the pippy bag was a nail-biting process, and in the end I called in expert help. One of the illegal butchers had been “turned”, regularly attending a twelve-choking-fit programme set up by Illegal Butchers Anonymous, and he proved invaluable. Where I had been screwing my courage to the sticking place, he ignored the sticking place entirely and soon had my pippy bag ready for flies in mud. I was so pleased I gave him a handful of peas as a gift.

I am hoping to add to my collection this coming weekend, and have in mind a particular stretch of mud over by the Ringo Starr Caterpillar Breeding Centre. Armed with my kit, I shall trudge out in the rain, at dawn, tum packed with a hearty gooseberry fool breakfast, the world, thanks to my contact lenses, all gold and purple and brown and green and puce and mauve and blue. If you see me, doff your cap, if you have a cap to doff. If not, just tilt your head at the angle prescribed by Blötzmann (Second Handbook, Lavender Series).

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About Author Profile: Frank Key

Frank Key is a London-based writer, blogger and broadcaster best known for his Hooting Yard blog, short-story collections and his long-running radio series Hooting Yard on the Air, which has been broadcast weekly on Resonance FM since April 2004. By Aerostat to Hooting Yard - A Frank Key Reader, an ideal introduction to his fiction, is published for Kindle by Dabbler Editions. Mr Key's Shorter Potted Brief, Brief Lives was published in October 2015 by Constable and is available to buy online and in all good bookshops.

4 thoughts on “Flies In Mud

  1. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    September 12, 2014 at 08:52

    Will there be a flies in mud forum, with lots of members, 1437 members on line, most members on line at one time..2409 on 13/08/06.

    A forum is a must, no sphere of human activity today is complete without one, there will be born again fly in the mud addicts and, naturally, noobies. The forum has to be replete with, avatars I believe they are called and also a small joining fee, $2.99 per month is a useful figure.

    Oh, and you will need a moderator, just like the Church of Scotland.

  2. Worm
    September 12, 2014 at 11:08

    oh to have a phalanx of obedient flies in mud, ready to carry out my every whim!

    There is actually a very good and weird short story I know of on this very topic that would appeal to you Frank

    http://www.unz.org/Pub/Unknown-1942jun-00090

  3. andrewnixon@blueyonder.co.uk'
    September 12, 2014 at 13:05

    A classic. Reminds me of a great conversation with an in-law once, when the subject of antique tin toys came up (as it inevitably does):
    In-law: “Oh, I collect tin toys.”
    “Really, how many do you have?”
    “…..One.”

  4. Gaw
    September 12, 2014 at 20:03

    Tour de force innit?

    And stick with it Marisol, old girl (or boy).

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