Velociworld

Black Fly Hell

Bogie was speaking of black flies (well, actually, she promised black flies in the title, but I don't recall her ever actually getting around to black flies), and that triggered a memory I'd shared with Acidman last Friday.

A few years ago we were ataying at my in-laws' condo on Tybee Island, and walked down to the beach for a bit of sunbathing. For some reason a swarm of black flies proceeded to chew our asses up. These were not deer flies, or house flies, or horse flies. They weren't bluebottle flies, greenbottle flies, or blowflies. Hell, they weren't even tse-tse flies, much less Brundle flies. They were eat your ass up black flies.

So after 30 minutes of ineffective battle I was overjoyed when my cousin strolled onto the beach and asked if I would like to go fishing with a mutual friend. We took S's boat to the Islands Expressway boatramp [that's the boatramp notorious for businessmen getting busted at lunch for sucking each others' pricks in the public restrooms. Now that is a bail call to make to a wife].

So we sped to Wassaw Sound, where we proceeded to catch naught but baby sharks, one after the other. Then the black flies hit again. They ripped us so hard I had a hand towel literally covered in blood from their corpses. We wisely decided to leave, but halfway back to the ramp a summer squall hit us, replete with malicious bolt lightning. There was nothing for it but to beach on a small uninhabited island, a hammock, really, but heavily forested. One of those tiny isles that are great for camping, drinking, and gunplay, but little else.

There the black flies caught up to us. They chewed us so badly we resorted to using palmetto fronds to brush our calves, which only served to lacerate our calves, which bled, which attracted more flies.

The thunderstorm passed, and we fled home. The next day the flies were gone. Totally gone.

Perhaps they were mayflies. They only live a day, right? Does anyone know if mayflies are black, and crave Velociblood?