38,504. That's how many flies direclty gave up their lives at my hands for the pursuit of science. That doesn't even count the many that were used for crosses - the baby-factories, if you will - then tossed into the little bottle of ethanol. If you count those, well then the count probably closes in on 50,000. And what's even scarier that that? What's even more frightening than the thought of an eternity in hell for each life taken? What's more horrible? Knowing that I counted each and everyone, looking at him through a 40x microscope, discerning eye colour and wing shape. I think I've already served my time for those killings.

Probably a couple of million or more flies passed through my hands over the course of my experiments. That I only directly killed 50,000 - less than 3% - well, I'm doing pretty darned good, I think.

Hats off to my 1,933,004 (apx) flies. George, Tom, Angelina, Joey, Kirk...

(er...yeah, I got bored of writing my thesis. why do you ask?)