LETTER OF OBSERVANCE AND PARTICIPATION:

Dear [East Jordan Market's Literary Extravaganza]: Excuse me for being "off the beaten path" if you will, but I submit to no one. Just so you know that is why I put "submission" in quotation marks. Just because I am submittng a letter does not mean I am in any way submitting to you personally. I submit to no one. Did I say that already? Anyway, for future reference I will be sending any entrances under the heading of "letter of submission". That is much better.

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I am a fly on the wall. I hear all, I see all, and I constantly lick my hands (or so people think). What I am really doing is laughing at all the stupid things humans do. For instance, after my afternoon pile of dog pooty (what is a pooty you ask? it is kind of like a turdy), I head off into the life of the college nomad. I slink in the corner and above the heads of those trying to higher their education by listening to the dronings on of the old and overweight person at the head of the room.

It is not that content of the class at which I so wittingly laugh. It is the habits of those within. Why does the blond girl in the back move her eyebrows so? And why does the boy two seats away think that mocking her expressions will win her love? "Run, man, run before she uses your money and car!" He never hears me, alas, for I am only a fly. Why do those up front with pocket protectors feel that it is there goal in life to tell the teacher and the class what the book says? The class has already figured it out. I feel this must be why they sit up front. First so they do not have to see the sticking out of tongues and rolling of eyes, and second so that the spit-balls hit only the back of their neck.

Not funny, you say? Well I didn't expect you would think so. You are all the same impudent twerps; everywhere! If only I could be heard for once... Yes, then some use would be made of your robotic lives. Ha ha ha hahahahah hahhhhhh. But, alas, I am just a fly. If you only knew what I was really doing when I landed on your head or buzzed within your ear (Editor's note: on further interogation of the fly we found that he does not do much of anything in your hair or ear. Be at ease.) then maybe you would come to your senses. Like right now, I am flying around and around the freckled chubby kid in the second row. I fly and fly and fly. His chubby hand swats at me. His massive arm drives me to the desk and encumbers me. I strain to lift his arm and fly again, but alas I am just a fly, and I am dead.

LETTERS FROM READERS