Skip to content

Dead Hours — The Fly, Page 9

By Suha · Published

Log in to see this page

Page 9 of The Fly is for signed-in readers. Logging in brings you straight back here — and an account is free if you do not have one.

Transcript

A single quiet wide panel. Kaito stands alone in the middle of the shop floor between the aisles, head tipped back, staring up at the fly as it circles under the one round ceiling speaker. Rain streaks the dark glass. The moment is still and almost existential. KAITO: Sealed doors. Spotless floor. Where did you come from.

Image description

A quiet wide shot of Kaito alone mid-floor, head tipped back, staring up at the single fly circling under the ceiling speaker.

About this chapter

3 A.M. and the Dead Hours store is spotless — until Kaito spots a single housefly. He decides on the spot that it must be gone by morning, alive: no death on the record on his shift. Rin starts filming "Man vs Fly." The night's regulars each hand him a different, confidently useless folk method — trap it under a cup and a card, approach from behind because flies supposedly can't fly backwards, just wait because it'll die within a day anyway, clap above it because they jump upward to take off, or open a window — and none of them agree. Three times Kaito freezes mid-air, whispers "There," and swipes at nothing. Rin, in a rare unguarded moment, quietly slides the door open a hand's width to let it out, then denies doing it. At last Kaito clamps a cup over the fly in triumph — and lifts it to find nothing underneath; the fly was sitting on the outside of the cup the whole time. At dawn the delivery doors open and the fly drifts out on its own, entirely indifferent to six hours of war — and a second fly drifts in as it goes. Kaito gets his answer and nothing else; Rin got her whole video. The final panel mirrors page one from the same angle, in grey dawn light, the new fly circling under the ceiling speaker.