Blow Fly

68

MID-MORNING IN POLAND, a maintenance worker named George Skrzypek is sent to room 513 of the Radisson Hotel to fix a stuck drain in a bathtub that is causing an unpleasant odor.

He knocks on the door and calls out "maintenance" several times. When no one answers, he lets himself in, noticing right away that the guests have checked out, leaving a bed of tangled sheets spotted with seminal fluid and numerous empty wine bottles and ashtrays filthy with cigarette butts on the bedside tables.

The closet door is open, coat hangers on the floor, and when he walks into the bathroom with his box of tools, he discovers the usual mess of toothpaste crusted on the sink and splattered on the mirror. The toilet isn't flushed, the tub filled with scummy water, and large flies crawl on a plate of partially eaten chocolates set on the counter next to the sink. Flies drone and butt against the light over the mirror and dive-bomb Skrzypeks head.

Pigs.

So many people are pigs.

He pulls on large rubber gloves and dips his hands into the cold, greasy bathwater, feeling for the drain. It is clogged with clumps of long black hair.

Pigs.

Water begins to drain from the tub. He tosses the wet, matted hair into the toilet and waves flies away from his face, disgusted as he watches them moil over the plate of chocolates. Taking off his rubber gloves, he flaps them at the fat, black, filthy pests.

Of course, flies are not exotic insects to him, and he sees them on the job, but never this many in a room and not this time of year when the weather is cool. He moves past the bed and notes the open window, a typical sight, even in the winter, because so many guests smoke. As he reaches to shut it, he notices another fly crawling on the sill. It lifts up like a dirigible and buzzes past him into the room. An odor seeps in with the outside air, a very faint odor that reminds him of sour milk or rotten meat. He sticks his head out the window. The stench is coming from the room directly to the right. Room 511.