A fly got in the house the other day. I first saw him walking on the inside of the back door window, from pane to pane. I opened the door and waved both hands wildly in an attempt to shoo him outside. The fly, unfazed, remained on the inside.

Doug happened to come to the door just then and saw me flapping around.

"I see you're experimenting with your medication again," he observed.

"I'm trying to get a fly to go outside," I explained. "He's on the window."

Doug looked, but saw nothing; the fly had flown the coop.

"Of course he is. Just because I don't see him doesn't mean he isn't real to you," he added, patting me on the head.

By the second day, the fly and I were locked in mortal combat. He'd been following me from room to room for 48 hours, taunting me, daring me to catch or dispatch him. He buzzed in my office -- until I went for the fly-swatter. He buzzed in the living room -- until I grabbed volume six of the encyclopedia and threw it at him.

He even buzzed in the bathroom, which was a problem on two levels: 1) I like my privacy; and 2) having a set of compound eyes on me in that setting is especially disturbing.

On Day Three, I named the fly Fabian -- Latin for "bean" -- because he was as big as a garbanzo. When Fabian flew across a room, the shadow he cast and the roar of his wings in flight were like a fully loaded World War II troop-carrier.

Of course by then, any inclination I'd ever had to spare Fabian's life had long since evaporated. As far as I was concerned, he was Public Enemy No. 1, and I'd take him out any way I could. The last weapon in my arsenal was to hang a sticky fly-strip from one of the curtain rods on the French doors -- a decorating statement that says, "Welcome to my home. Don't mind the rooster on the couch or the goat in the living room. They're just like family."

Fabian had followed me mercilessly all over the house. He'd tormented me with acrobatic swoops and supersonic speed every time I reached for Newsweek magazine to take a whack at him.

And in three days, Doug had never seen him once.

On the morning of day No. 4, I found Fabian taking a stroll on the big sunlit window in the morning room.

This was it. It was me or the fly.

I stretched as high as I could and swiped at him with the first thing my hand fell on: a grocery store circular.

I missed and Fabian moved to a higher position faster than a speeding bullet -- which, coincidentally, was what I thinking of using on him next.

A half hour later Doug came in and saw me standing on a step ladder, shredded circular in hand. Every chair in the room was overturned, the place mats on the table were askew and the curtains were in tatters.

"Your book club ladies stop by?" he asked.

"I was trying ... to get ... the fly ...," I panted.

Doug looked around the room.

"What fly?" he asked.

"The one that flew out when you opened the door just now."

"Ah, that fly. It's a darned shame," he observed. "If you'd have bagged him, I was going to help you mount his teeny-weeny little head over the mantle."

Cathy Drinkwater Better writes from Eldersburg. E-mail her at cbetter@juno.com.

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