Fly To Mouth
by LM Therrien
April 5, 2026 | Fiction | Startled, Shocked
Flies are always swarming the chapel entry. Baby William, barely two years old and two feet tall, toddles in the entrance where people drop their doubt, deceit, and attitudes.
He toddles to the corner where the stained-glass window casts an orange glow on the battle between cool breezy hate and resumed faith. That corner where flies buzz until they drop to the ground in stiff, holy residue. That corner where Baby William eats the flies. One, two, seven flies in total, chewing their gummy bodies. The first fly tastes like betrayal; Sister Margret skimming the largest bills from sandwich sales. The second tastes of lust; Brother John wiping a neighborly tryst off his two fingers. The largest fly makes his tongue swell with profanities; Sister Berta holding perverts and sluts between her teeth. It all knits together like the threads in the Angel’s Glory Tapestry in the front hall.
Great Nanny Berta, the church’s matron babysitter, comes up and praises the Little Angle, this boy in a proper suit—off the rack and much too long for his legs. Then Little Baby Angel William reaches his chubby hand, dimples for knuckles, and takes the necklace with a force that burns the back of her neck. Little Baby Angel William stares with wide-eyed knowing and hits her. The gold cross pricks her shoulder and a dot of blood weeps as he screams in
tongues. The woman doesn’t recognize the tone because she’s busy retrieving a paper towel. She comes back though, to pat his head and hand him a juice box. Little Baby Angel Willian sucks
down that golden liquid.
People shuffle in. He runs through the pews and rips a page from every open song book. It’s the pulpit and the pastor he needs, making that steady climb of prestige and devotion. He needs more flies to taste it all, to cut his molars on their rotten righteousness. The pastor mustn’t hinder their destruction. Pastor Ehler sees the boy coming and holds the bible out like a shield, the embossed cross tilts upside down. Little Baby Angel William is emboldened and shrieks in a biblical delirium.
Pastor Ehler gives Little Angel William a kiss on his forehead, tasting the sweaty innocence that reeks of raw rage. “Ah, he’s feeling the spirit today. We’ll start with a hymn now.”
Angel William is coaxed off stage with another juice box and led to his favorite stained-glass corner.