Las Moscas Del Dios English

The God of the Flies

by Marco Denevi

The flies imagined their god. It was also a fly. The god of the flies was a fly, now green, nowblack and gold, now pink, now white, now purple, an inconceivable fly, a beautiful fly, a monstrous fly, a terrible fly, a benevolent fly, avengeful fly, a just fly, a young fly, an old fly, but always a fly. Some embellished his size so that he was compared to an ox, others imagined him tobe so small that you couldn’t see him. In some religions, he was missing wings (“He flies,” they argued, “but he doesn’t need wings.”) while inothers he had infinite wings. Here it was said he had antennae like horns, and there that he had eyes that surrounded his entire head. For somehe buzzed constantly, and for others he was mute, but he could communicate just the same. And for everyone, when flies died, he took them up toparadise. Paradise was a hunk of rotten meat, stinking and putrid, that souls of the dead flies could gnaw on for an eternity without devouringit; yes, this heavenly scrap of refuse would be constantly reborn and regenerated under the swarm of flies. For the good flies. Because therewere also bad flies, and for them there was a hell. The hell for condemned flies was a place without excrement, without waste, trash, stink,without anything of anything; a place sparkling with cleanliness and illuminated by a bright white light; in other words, an abominable place.