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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 3

The Biafran and the Blowfly

page 556

The Biafran and the Blowfly

A friend of mine told me this story. He told it at the time when the Ibo people were starving in Biafra.

‘A layman, a priest and a Biafran were standing in a pub,’ he said. ‘They were talking together and the two non-Biafrans were buying the other man a beer. Then a blowfly buzzed into the pub. It settled first on the priest’s forehead. He brushed it off with an irritable expression. Then it settled on the layman’s head. He brushed it off at once. Then it settled on the Biafran’s head. He reached up carefully, grabbed the fly, and swallowed it.’

‘You’ve got it wrong,’ I said. ‘That’s not how the poor behave. The Biafran would have found two other poor men. He would have given the head of the blowfly to the first man to eat, and the legs of the blowfly to the second man. Then he would have eaten the body of the fly. That’s how the poor behave. Your story is told from the point of view of the rich. They stay rich because they don’t behave like that.’

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