Bob's Boxes 28 - almost over for the year.

He didn’t notice the fly immediately.

Until then everything was perfect; the room was comfortable, he was wearing his loose cotton stretch pants and the CD of whale song had just started. He had placed the incense in the corner so that the smell was complimentary but not overpowering and he had tied his hair back with a silk bandana so that it didn’t flop into his face. His blue eyes were focused straight ahead and through the window he could see the snow on the distant mountains. He inhaled deeply and let the outbreath roll into a deep resonating hum. And then he closed his eyes.

The fly landed on his nose.

Ok, he should have heard it but the vibration of his mantra and the drone of the insect were sonically inseparable and at first he thought it was just the random prickle of tension leaving the earthly plane of his body that always seemed to accompany his passage into meditation and enlightenment.

Then the fly moved and stopped in the centre of his forehead, precisely where he imagined his third eye to be.

With the graceful certainty of one who has full control of his life force and energy, Chuck gently brushed his face. Someone watching would have seen a gesture that reminded them of a petal opening on a lotus flower.

The fly returned.

Chuck breathed deeply, remembering how he could use his breath as a force and he directed it towards his third eye; he was calm, he was centered and only the sharpest of observers would have noticed the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

The fly didn’t believe in anything very much and was very happy to stay exactly where it was.

Chuck tried the graceful lotus gesture a second time but now the twitch at the side of his mouth was clearer, and anyone who saw it might have used the word snarl.

The fly lifted itself gently on the wave of air, levitating with a practiced ease and with a mind empty of attachment returned to the essence of where it had been before, on Chucks brow.

And that’s when the slap came.