Peter came crashing through the cottage door, his shirt speckled with blood, multiple punctures on his neck, ears like cauliflowers, his left eye practically swelled shut.

“Forty-two to twenty-six!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

“Looks like a painful run,” his wife replied. “Is that a record for deer fly kills and bites?”

Norman is a writer from Ottawa who has encountered too many deer flies. He has been published in Saturday Night Reader and 101 Words.