Brad returned to the back of the park bench, a tiny insect clutching at a wooden slat with its six spindly, spiky hook-tipped limbs, as the sun continued sinking along the distant horizon.
He spent much of the time nervously grooming his “face” with the the forelimbs of his three pairs of legs. The action was very much an instinct and he didn’t even realize he was doing it. It did have the unintentional side effect of calming the little fly, which had been almost overwhelmed by panic since finding itself stranded far from home in the park.
Earlier, soon after arriving at the park, he had forced himself to leave the bench, which had quickly become associated with security in his mind.
He had swiveled his strange compound eyes, having a quick look in all directions. He had learned that the eyes were even good at looking upward. The housefly's compound eyes allowed the transformed physicist to see a significant radius around its body. A major drawback, however, was the fact that, beyond a few feet, the enormous world became a rather amorphous blur.
With a flick of muscles on his back, his wings whirred into action, raising his tiny insect form into the air.
He immediately felt a wave of weary weakness overcome him. He stumbled through the air in erratic circles, confused by how suddenly his exhaustion had afflicted him until it dawned on him that he was hungry.
His first 24 hours in fly form had been spent in his home, following Mark from room to room, but there had been plenty of time to find food, which had been surprisingly plentiful. The kitchen had been a haven, from the depths of a bowl of fruit on the counter to crumbs of food resting on counters and the floor.
“Ugh, I hope Mark doesn’t eat any of that fruit,” he thought to himself, recalling how his fly body prepared his food for consumption by throwing up some disgusting slurry on prospective food before mopping up the results with his adaptable proboscis.
The second 24 hours had left his tiny body almost starved before Matteo had freed him from the pool filter trap.
That had only been a few hours ago, but during the interval he had only consumed some sort of unidentified garbage. He had a firm opinion that it was probably better he didn’t know what he’d eaten.
He just knew that now, in the park, bowls of fruit were not going to be readily available. His insect instincts, however, took over at this point, and Brad found himself on autopilot as his new form automatically responded to scents and aromas that suggested food.
Unrestrained, the fly proved adept at finding food. It wasn’t until Brad’s flight spiraled toward the ground that he discovered the pitfalls of trusting his insect instincts.
His flight landed him atop a large brown mound covered with numerous other flies. Each of the insects swarming over the brown surface looked identical to Brad’s new physical body. There was no way that anyone could have physically differentiated him from a real fly.
A quick vomit and he was slurping up nutrients with a zeal matched by the other flies until his human brain put together enough clues to realize what he was eating.
“Oh crap!”
His rather spot-on exclamation had followed in the wake of his recognition of the familiar sight of dog droppings left in a grassy area of park lawn.
It also aggravated one of his pet peeves, which was people who didn’t clean up after their dogs.
Another fly nudged him, hoping to acquire a better position for feeding.
The rich stink of the mound battered at his insect senses. Brad felt sick.
He threw up again, whether from hunger or nausea, he wasn’t exactly clear.
All around him, flies vomited over the huge doggie deposit and slurped up like they were feasting on a gourmet meal. Dozens of proboscises mopped up the slurry of vile but essential nutrients.
Brad forced his wings to carry him away from the revolting scene. He wasn’t some mindless bug. He could find something else… anything else.
Hours later, after finding thin smears of grease on discarded fast food wrappers insufficient to meet his needs, he returned to the same mound. Despite all the flies that swarmed over the deposit, there didn’t seem to have been any noticeable diminishment.
He had failed utterly in finding something to keep his tiny fly form fueled. Starving to death wasn’t an option if he ever hoped to return home.
In the end, he jostled aside other flies to get to a good spot. He let the fly’s instincts control his actions, which had him pumping his tiny proboscis like a jumpstarted piston as he sucked up the vile slurry.
After dining to the point of satiation, the last rays of sun vanished and he made his way back to the bench. He had failed completely. He was facing his third night as a fly without having made any progress. If anything, he had taken a step backward with his actions now matching his new form.
“Tomorrow,” he thought. He promised himself to get out of the park and back home after a night’s rest.
He zipped high into the air and settled into the shelter provided by some palm fronds on one of the park’s trees. He worried about dangerous predators, imagining a relentless horde of arachnids and fellow insects, but eventually he slept.