Brad felt fortunate, convinced things were finally going his way. He had survived birds, hostile humans and pummeling raindrops. He had found a warm place out of the cold and rain that offered plenty of food. The pizza represented an almost inexhaustible supply of it. He had already fed, but he could feed some more and then find a way out of the apartment and then fly home.
To Mark. To his basement laboratory. To the Chronivac.
His proboscis sponged more of the liquified cheese as he gorged himself silly.
Meanwhile a man, still rumpled from sleep, stumbled into the kitchen in white socks and briefs. He poured himself some juice and sat at the table, disturbing a fly that flew out of the pizza box and circled the kitchen.
The man ignored the bug, which momentarily returned, flew back into the carton and landed again on a pizza slice as big as a freight barge.
The man turned pale green eyes to toward the open carton and watched the little fly, betraying no more than casual interest. The fly, driven more from hunger than caution, continued to convert the cheese into a suitable slurry sucked up greedily by its strange proboscis. The man’s only motion was the occasional lifting of the glass of juice to his mouth. He became part of the background as the fly kept its focus on refueling, a necessary first step in its plans.
Brad needed to feed. Normally, a giant half-naked man might have attracted his interest, but when the giant took no overt action against him, he ignored him and continued to feed. Eventually, hunger sated, Brad flew up and out of the box. He buzzed his wings slowly, unthreatened by the man. He wanted to get a look at the masculine giant before he continued his journey.
But that wasn't advancing his immediate goal.
“I need to get home. To Mark," he chided himself.
But he hovered on wings that created an unceasing buzz and soaked up the sight of the titanic man as greedily as he had the pizza slurry.
He finally tore himself away from the landscape of flesh and muscle. He meant to find an exit, but a square of light attracted him toward a window pane over the kitchen sink. He battered his body against the glass, over and over, his insect’s wiring telling him the light represented an exit.
“Stupid bug brain…” complained Brad, but he managed to exert enough control to veer away from the window.
The distraction with the light and the window had taken his attention away from the man, who had risen from the table and walked to the sink to deposit his empty juice glass, while noticing the antics of the winged insect banging against the window. Before knocking itself completely senseless, the insect zipped away from the window.
The man kept his eyes on the insect and traced the fly's flight. Brad hadn’t flown far when a giant fist lashed out and closed around his puny form.
The man heard a high-pitched whiny buzz erupt from within his closed fist and felt the fuzzy squirming of the trapped insect against his fingers. Chuckling, he crossed the room, lifted a flimsy plastic lid on a glass fish tank, and lowered his fist inside.
Still buzzing frantically, Brad wasn’t prepared when the fist opened. The enormous hand withdrew in a flash and the tank’s lid slammed closed tightly.
The insect buzzed against the tank’s front pane of glass.
“What the hell!” Brad continued to smack the glass with his puny body.
The tank held a substrate of small pebbles, which looked more like boulders to Brad. A larger rock and a piece of driftwood provided some decorative elements and a glowing light bulb ensured that Brad wouldn’t get paralyzed again by the cold.
“I’m not a pet!” Brad thought furiously as he found himself , once again, smashing against a sheet of glass and staring at the huge man’s face covered with morning beard stubble.
The man lowered his huge face to the front of the tank, tapping on the glass a couple of times with his knuckles.
“Wake up!” The man’s voice boomed but was distorted by the glass.
“I am awake!” Brad buzzed in confusion.
From another part of the tank, in response to the taps of the man’s knuckles on the glass, a pale gray-green form moved from the backside of the chunk of driftwood.
Brad swiveled his fly’s eyes and felt a chill as the form materialized into something nightmarishly akin to a dinosaur as the caged reptile moved.
He wasn’t meant to be the man’s pet; he was pet food!
He flew back to the front pane of glass, battering himself silly, seeing the huge man watching him from the other side.
“Let me out! Please, let me out!” Brad buzzed.
The reptile wasn’t really a dinosaur, although for the tiny housefly, the identification was understandable. It was a green and gold monstrosity with horns and teeth and claws. If it had breathed fire, Brad could not have been any more surprised.
The pet stretched, attracted by the flitting motion of the insect, and moved along a branch of the driftwood formation.
“No!” Brad buzzed higher. He bumped against the unyielding plastic lid and nearly scorched himself against the hot light bulb.
“No! Please!” Brad buzzed back to the pane of glass, hoping to plead with the stranger.
The reptile walked methodically over the gravels scattered over the bottom of the tank, moving closer to the fly.
“Go away!” Brad felt frantic. “Don’t eat me!”
The man’s face pulled into a grin.
“Got you a fresh one,” he spoke to his pet.
Brad panicked.
“I should have stayed in the park!” Brad thought as he buzzed around the tank, hoping to find a place inaccessible to the monster.
His only hope was that the creature moved slowly. He landed on a perch atop the tip of one of the branches on the driftwood centerpiece. His compound eyes fastened onto something that could have been a storybook dragon covered with green and gold scales. Three horns, one from the snout and two from the creature’s brows, made the monster look even more mythical. A long tail, still wrapped around a branch lower on the piece of driftwood, accounted for much of the reptile’s 10-inch length. Even the creature’s back showed bony ridges forming a sort of dorsal crest.
A bony socket housing one of the reptile’s eyes swiveled. The movement startled Brad, who was struggling to become accustomed to his own insect eyes. The lizard could move its eyes independently and, at the moment, one of those eyes had locked onto his tiny form.
The lizard uncurled its tail and took a tentative step back toward the driftwood. The eye swiveled in the socket and refocused. Brad experienced the primal chill of stalked prey as the predator inched closer. The animal moved slowly, methodically.
The creature could obviously climb, but Brad could fly. If it began to climb, he could simply fly to another section of the tank.
The creature’s head moved and the other eye rotated in its protuberant socket and focused on him, making a shiver pass through him again.
Something disturbed his insect instincts…
“Think!” He tried to thwart his rising panic. He put down an urge to fly blindly.
TAP! TAP!
The man rapped on the glass with his knuckles.
The sound reverberated deeply into the tank, scaring one skittish fly into taking flight at the worst possible moment. The buzz from its wings was abruptly silenced.
With a lightning-strike velocity, a pink tongue shot from the chameleon’s mouth and struck the housefly.
Brad felt like a wet, sticky blanket had rolled around his body. Then, in the horrible next instant, the tongue squeezed him as it retracted back toward the waiting open maw.
He was still conscious when the jaws chomped down on his body, but that lasted for only a brief interval. Everything had occurred in a mere tenth of a second.
Watching, the man smiled as his pet chameleon chomped a couple more times, mangling the insect into a mushy pulp before swallowing.
“Enjoy,” the man said and stood, ready to commence his day.