The tailored business suit fit seamlessly over the man’s body. The fabric moved with him as he strode along the park path. A year shy of thirty, the man moved with confidence and command.
His steps disturbed the unnoticed housefly, which fled the borders of a puddle, taking alarmed flight as a huge shoe thundered down.
The man frowned at the sight of a dropped coffee cup near one of the park’s benches. He reached down and removed the piece of trash. Depositing the cup in a nearby garbage can, the man then took a seat on the unoccupied bench, ready to commence his lunch break.
His actions continued to disturb a small insect, which remained in a hovering flight as the man’s hand plucked the gigantic cup from the ground with ease. The man’s enormous, polished leather shoes trod on the puddle that the fly had chosen for what had, to it, seemed like an endless reservoir of nourishment.
The common housefly flew higher, away from the enormous human, which had just obliterated a pond-sized puddle of milk, sugar and coffee that had gone a long way to restoring the tiny insect’s depleted energy. The insect buzzed around the mounds of debris collected inside the massive waste receptacle, spying the discarded cup, but took its focus off the man. No longer ravenous with hunger, the fly resisted the urge to spiral down into the depths of the collected garbage for more exploration of an array of scents.
Meanwhile, the man slid his laptop from a carrying case and unfolded the computer over his lap. He ignored a faint and irritating buzz as he got down to work.
The revitalized fly could at that moment have flown from the park, but the man distracted it from what had been a reasonably thought out if ambitious plan.
Instead, it hovered, spirits aroused, as it admired the vast assembly of well-tailored fabric needed to cover the man’s impressive and muscular form. A stimulating scent from the man’s earlier generous splash of cologne enticed the tiny insect closer. A forest of hairs covered the man’s face, combining into a well-trimmed beard.
Surveying everything with its faceted eyes, the insect watched the man’s tree-sized fingers dance over the keys. Letters formed on the screen, floating fonts almost as big as the insect itself.
An idea.
A jarring buzz interrupted disjointed thoughts. Produced by the man’s phone, not the fly’s wings, the buzz continued until the man answered, loudly, precisely.
“This is Tate.”
An unusual name… Brad wondered whether it was a surname or the man’s given name?
The man, engaged with the caller, moved his fingers away from the keyboard, permitting the housefly to put its idea into action. Hovering, intimidated by the enormous example of masculinity, the fly chose the H key, landing with a preciseness. Doing a rotation on the key, the tiny fly looked across a gulf of space at the laptop screen. No new letter had appeared.
A wave of defeat triggered its wings into a buzz of irritation.
“No! Dammit! No!” Brad thought in despair.
He was too small, too insignificant, to affect the keys. His weight was insufficient to depress the H key and start his message of “Help me Im a human.”
Maybe, if he simply flew from key to key, got the giant man to notice…
H…
E…
L…
P…
The man, one hand holding his phone to the side of the head, noticed the erratic insect skipping across his keyboard. Using his free hand, he swept his fingers in a swift motion, brushing the little pest aside.
The frustration of tiny wings buzzed around his head, but the man’s attention fixed on the gray skies. With a frown, he trusted his instincts, packed up his laptop and, ignoring the insect buzzing around his head, stood and walked swiftly out of the park.
The man reached the shelter of a nearby coffee house seconds before the clouds burst with a downpour of rain.
Back at the park, the little fly, after a few preliminary raindrops staggered it with their impacts on its tiny, frail form, it had to take shelter on the underside of the bench, clinging to one of the seat slats with its special feet, each of which came equipped with a claw and a sort of sticky pad.
Beyond the shelter, raindrops crashed all around and cleansed the world with a maelstrom that lasted for hours. The cold, the damp, settled upon the winged bug. Brad felt the return of hunger.
The rain continued, even as the sun sank low, starkly presenting to the transformed man that a second day had been lost. He was still in the park, cowering beneath a bench, thwarted by something as mundane as raindrops.
A vow of tomorrow sounded weak with the parallel moment of deja vu it brought to Brad. He was spending now a fourth day as a fly and his second night stranded in the park far from home.
Sleep, food, fly home. He repeated the litany, his objectives for the next day, as he drifted into sleep.