His father sat at the table, in the kitchen. Two bottles of beer, one empty, stood on the surface in front of him. I noticed several more in the trashcan next to the refrigerator. We walked up to him, slowly. He turned his head and saw us. He smiled, his eyes half open, his lips lazily parted, his arms laying heavily on the tabletop. One hand was wrapped around the bottle with beer still in it. The other spread apart its fingers. My friend put his hand on his father’s shoulder. He smiled down onto his parent. His parent smiled back, continued from our entrance smile. They both looked at me, and I smiled too. The father laughed a little. I moved toward the cabinet, opened it. I took out an empty glass and filled it with water. My friend came toward me, did the same, filled his with orange juice. We both went to the table then.
I sat across from his father, he sat between us, on my right. I touched my glass to my lips and drank the water. It was clear and cold. It chilled my throat and the rest of the insides it touched. My belly was soon cold too. I then set the glass down on the table. My friend looked at me. I returned. He then turned to his father, who sat quietly. He looked at his son, and smiled. He did that a lot tonight. A scream, muffled, floated to us at the table. I turned, startled, and noticed that it was the television. Nearby his mother lay on the couch, asleep. She had drifted off in the middle of a werewolf movie. We were seeing the end. A woman, scared and beautiful, ran through the wilderness looking for something, safety maybe or a hero or town or the police with guns with silver bullets. No matter her aims, she ran. Her dark hair, made even darker by the black and white film, fluttered about her face as she moved. It was curly and a messy obstruction. The werewolf, hairy and wearing a torn suit jacket, would pop out from behind trees and fallen rotted logs. She screamed a lot. We had just noticed.
I turned back to the table company. His father whispered something to us, “she’s been out since about half an hour in.” We all giggled slightly. Then, he asked us about our night. “We went to the Loop,” my friend answered. I nodded, because that’s what we had done. The father seemed satisfied. Above the table my friend saw a small black dot on the light. He pointed it out to us. We all looked up and saw it. The father said to me “get me some salt in a cup, no, on a plate, and you get me a cup of water.” We got him these things. Then my friend’s father climbed onto the wooden chair that he was sitting on. He stood up straight. His hands were sturdy as he reached out toward the light. He gently snatched the fly that had been lounging above our conversation. He then climbed back down. The father sat down again, next to his son.
He mumbled something to us, and we moved closer to hear it. “I’m gonna kill this bug.” He then added, “then I’m gonna bring him back.” I was confused. My friend looked like I felt. We watched sharply. The father dropped the fly into the cup of water. It began to twist, move violently, shudder with drowning. Its small body floated on the surface still so my friend’s father drunkenly pushed it below with a spoon. The fly quaked still more, kicking its legs, all six of them, and moving as if to scream at him, the father, the horrid, to show mercy, to let it live and fly another day. He did not comply, though. After a minute, the fly was dead.
Then he used the salt. The fly was picked out of the water, the grave, with the spoon that drowned it. It was dropped onto the salt pile. His father rolled the dead bug around, covering it in the coarse white. My friend and I looked on. I had stopped drinking my water.
“Might not work,” the father mumbled quietly. He kept rolling it though. Behind us the credits were moving down the screen. The werewolf movie had finished. It was over, showing editors and boom operators, benefactors and production companies. “Hey!” his father said. Under the salt, movement. The little dead fly came out of the pile. My friend’s father had brought back the dead. It took a few minutes, but the fly soon took off, heading straight back to the light above us, as if its own death hadn’t just occurred. I looked at my friend, smiled. He did the same, and we both smiled at his father, the resurrector, while he smiled back at us. He picked up his beer, took a healthy gulp, and placed it on the table, next to the plate of salt.
His mother, who had woken probably from the excitement at our table or from the sudden ending of her movie, came over to us. Her hair was messy, and she had an old blanket wrapped around her shoulders. He, the father, smiled up at her. She returned. She stood behind him, placed her hands on his neck, the back, and leaned down to kiss his head. She kissed the top of his head, which was fully covered with hair. She asked him if he had shown us the fly trick, and he said yes. She probably noticed the salt on the table. She smiled at the top of his drunken head and kissed it again. Then, she said goodnight to us and went upstairs. My friend and I stood up, put our glasses in the sink, and moved toward the basement door. “Goodnight,” we said to the father. “Goodnight.” He finished his beer and smiled at us as we went downstairs. When we closed the basement door a sliver of light could still be seen from the kitchen.