Mr. Woodifield, a retired man who has recently suffered a stroke, sits in the office of his former employer. Mr. Woodifield’s wife and daughters keep him home most of the time because they are concerned for his health, but each Tuesday he is allowed to venture into the city. Mr. Woodifield chooses to spend this time visiting his friend and former employer, the boss. Woodifield admires the boss’s office, commenting on how snug it is. The boss enjoys the admiration and points out various recent updates to the office. This list includes the carpet, the bookcases, and the brand-new heating. However, he avoids mentioning a photograph of his son in uniform. The photograph was taken six years ago, and it is not new like the rest of the office. Mr. Woodifield says that there is something he’d like to tell the boss, but he’s having difficulty remembering. 

Feeling bad for Mr. Woodifield’s struggle to recall what he wanted to say, the boss jokingly tells Woodifield he has just the medicine for him. The boss pulls out a bottle of whiskey and generously offers some to Woodifield. Because he isn’t allowed to drink at home, Mr. Woodifield happily accepts the offer, and the boss pours them both tumblers. Drinking helps Mr. Woodifield recall what he wanted to say, which is that his daughters visited the grave of someone named Reggie on a trip to Belgium and that they happened upon the boss’s son’s grave. He says that the new graveyard is beautiful and asks if the boss has been to see it yet, to which he responds that he has not. Otherwise, he doesn’t respond to Mr. Woodifield’s comments about the flowers and the nice paths in the graveyard. Mr. Woodifield goes on to talk about how he thinks his daughters were overcharged by the hotel for a pot of jam. When the boss agrees with him, he thinks that he isn’t sure what he’s agreeing to. 

After this exchange, Mr. Woodifield leaves. The boss stares after him for a long time before he asks Macey, the office manager, not to interrupt him for half an hour. Once he’s alone, the boss sits down and puts his head into his hands, expecting to cry. He was taken off-guard by the comment about his son’s grave, and he pictures him lying in his grave, unchanged. Despite this, and despite him speaking aloud to himself, he finds that he doesn’t cry. He thinks about how this hadn’t been the case in the months immediately after his son’s death when he often fell into violent fits of grief. He was sure back then that time would make no difference to his grief. He had worked hard all his life to pass the business on to his son, and now that was all gone. His son had been learning how to take over the business for a year before the war, and he had shown great aptitude toward the work. The boss thinks about the compliments he received about his son, his son’s popularity, and his son’s bright personality. Finally, he thinks about the day that he received the telegram informing him of his son’s death. That was six years ago, and he feels as if it could have happened yesterday. 

Unable to cry as he expected, the boss looks at the photograph. It’s not his favorite photo because he finds his son’s stern expression to be unnatural and so different from how the boy looked in real life. While looking at the photograph, he notices that a fly has fallen into his inkpot and is struggling to get out. He uses his pen to lift it out of the ink and sets it on a piece of blotting-paper. He admires the way that it cleans its legs, and then its wings, and then its face to get ready to fly again. The boss sees that the fly has overcome its ordeal and is again ready for life. Inspired, the boss drops a second drop of ink on the fly to watch it repeat this process. The fly is stunned, but it repeats the task of cleaning itself a second time, a little slower. The boss feels a greater admiration for the fly, and he internally comments on its spirit and courage. 

He drops a third drop of ink on the fly, whose movements are weaker each time. He is relieved when it starts to move for a third time, and he even considers blowing on it to help its progress. At this point, he talks to the fly, complimenting it. He decides that the fourth time will be the last. However, the fourth time that the boss drops ink on the fly, it stops moving. The fly is dead, its legs stuck in the ink. The boss attempts to stir the fly back to life with his pen, shouting some encouragement, but nothing happens. He throws the corpse of the fly away, feeling so horrible that it frightens him. He calls for Macey to bring him fresh paper to replace the paper the fly stained. Alone, he wonders what it was he’d just been thinking about. As he pats the sweat from his collar, he finds that he can’t recall.

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