The Horse Fly

Rebecca Johnson

Word Count 475

When I was thirty years old, a love affair came to an end. I didn’t much like the man but had stayed with him for almost two years. This was troubling. What kind of person stays in a bad relationship for that long? It was August in New York City-- hot, humid and emptied out. Everybody who could get out of the city had, while those left behind stared at each other in a state of embarrassed torpor.

Travel has always held the promise of change, so I left my car at the long term parking lot at JFK and got on a plane to Guatemala. I had read it was called the land of eternal spring because it never got too hot or too cold. Perfect. Also, the death squads were said to be on hiatus.

After a few weeks in Antigua, I traveled to an “eco lodge” close to the Mayan ruins of Tikal. This was pre-internet so you never knew if you were going to find a place when you showed up, but I got lucky. The owner (or perhaps the manager?) was somewhere in his late 40’s— tall, sinewy and hippie-ish. He spoke excellent English and wore Teva sandals.

When you travel alone, people feel sorry for you. They think it must be awful being alone (it’s not), so they’re always offering to do things with you. The owner offered to take me on an adventure and I agreed. We road horses down a dusty white road to a narrow river where we got in a canoe. At one point, we got stuck in a thicket of jungle and he jumped into the water to pull us through the branches.

I looked down and saw that he was naked. Oh dear, I thought, is he going to expect me to sleep with him? (He was not.)

On the way back to the lodge, a large horse fly landed on my thigh. I had once been bit by a horse fly in summer camp. It hurt for days and left me with a deep loathing for the insect. Also, it taught me that horse flies don’t fuck around. The minute they land, they bite. Being more accustomed to the thick hide of a horse, their teeth are long and flesh tearing. They make a mosquito bite feel like a week in Vegas. Without thinking, I brought my hand down as hard as I could. SPLAT. Mashed into my palm was a mangle of guts, blood, wings and one tiny leg juddering in its death throes. I showed it to the lodge owner.

“You,” he said, “are a remarkable woman.”

I am not a remarkable woman. Life has taught me that my hopes and fears are as ordinary as dirt but for that one moment, yes, I was rather remarkable.

Rebecca is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in various publications including (alphabetically) Elle, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The NYT Magazine, Salon, Vogue (contributing editor 1999-2020). Johnson is the author of the novel And Sometimes Why. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two children.