Brodgar by Night

Following this, my father insisted on calling it day. He’d had virtually no down time in the last week and felt exhausted from the constant driving (recall that only he could legally drive the car). He would take a long rest and go fishing with Scott by the Ring of Brodgar. So it was said and so it happened. As we set out for the water-sandwiched Ring of Brodgar around 9pm, there was one factor none of us had considered: flies. Oh Jesus, the flies.

Tiny flies. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands of them. We first knew something odd was going on when, driving to our destination, it seemed kind of like it was lightly snowing. The only difference is that rather than being white, the flakes were black, and they went splat on our windshield. Just tons and tons of these things. When I did finally, reluctantly choose to leave the car (the first 10 minutes or so I huddled inside with my mother) I breathed only through my nose and still worried about inhaling the buggers. My brother and father, who had gotten up their courage significantly before I found mine, we absolutely covered in them. A few dozen in their hair, more blanketing their shoes and pants.

What had finally spurred me out of the car was my mother’s reminder that the Ring of Brodgar was just behind us, and my own hope that these flies would be less present further inland.

Oh but let me not leave out the best part about these things. The reason these flies were so eager to land on things and people was not mere laziness. Wherever they landed they slowly shed their skin, leaving a shiny, quite sticky white insect-shaped skin behind them. As I write this, several days later, we still need to attend a car wash, for our car is covered in sticky insect skin, and our windows still smeared with their residue.

The flies were still present as I entered the Ring of Brodgar for my second time. It felt good and comfortable to see the stones again, it had a feeling of welcome to it. As I mentioned before, it was a very friendly circle. Though there were still flies here, there were only about 5% of the density that swarmed the land closer to the water. For about two hours I sat there, as my father and brother fished, sitting on a fallen standing stone and writing in this journal to the light of the setting sun.

My biggest regret in the Orkney’s is that I was not able to visit the Ring of Brodgar a third time. If ever I find a suitable woman, I want to get married in these stones.