There were squashed fly bodies all along the sidewalk. It seemed odd there should be so many of them lying there dead (). Then I saw one alive, and another, and knelt down and looked at one. It was moving slow. Had they been drugged?

I poked it's behind with my finger to see if it would flit away; it just fluffed its wings. I poked again. Then a voice came from behind me; a Northern European voice, like something Dutch or Finnish or something: "What did you discover?" she said.

"It's a bug. There are a bunch of them squooshed along the sidewalk*. I was trying to see why they didn't just fly away. Instead of getting stepped on."

She knelt too and poked another one. It was as lazy as the first one. We looked at them, and at the mangled fly bodies. "I like them alive. I don't like them when they're dead," she said. I felt the same way.

* For British readers: "sidewalk" is a "footpath."