The black fly that's been tormenting me all summer long is finally dead.

This was the fastest housefly I'd ever seen. As a child, I used to catch them with my hands -- I think I'm somewhat fast -- and then set them free outside, where they would "shoo fly, don't bother me."

I never liked flies. But I mean, I wasn't the kind of kid who would catch them and tear their wings off, joking, "Ha, ha, now you're a walk." Never felt sympathy for a dead one, though.

So then, I grew to like spiders, because they eat flies. Spiders usually run away from people, unlike pesky flies -- and mosquitoes, for that matter. 

Well, this particular fly, which would most appropriately be called an officefly since it was buzzing around your local newspaper office not a house, was so fast I couldn't believe it. 

It would sit on my shirt and stare at me with a million little eyes. It'd see me. I'd stare back. We both froze.

Eventually, I'd millimeter forward ever so slowly, barely moving I was so slow. 

It would let me get within maybe 2 or 3 inches of it, hand poised to whack the bug. I'd swing. Maybe I got it, I remember thinking a half-dozen times.

Then, the officefly would would whiz away, just barely out of my grasp.

But today, the officefly met its downfall on the backside of a Steno notebook -- really gory smash, too. It left a black smudge mark on the latest edition of the JI.

To have hit the thing as hard as I did, I must have had a summer's worth of pent-up anger penetrating the swat of those 6-inch-by-9-inch, Gregg-ruled 80 pages of white paper tied together by metal rings. 

And now, he who was once a victor every day for a whole summer is nothing but ... Splat! Good riddance, buzzing beauty. Tonight, I put you out with the garbage.