Everyone had stayed up most of the night after the Chronivac malfunctioned when Mark had tried to put him back in his rightful human body.
The fact that Brad now gazed through surrounding walls of thick glass spoke to Mark’s failure with the device.
Brad’s insect eyes took in the distorted enormous view of his own kitchen available to him from a mid-sized glass canister on a countertop.
His husband, who had emptied out the rice that had been held in the container, had trapped him here after a close call with Sal.
“For your protection” had been the words Mark had used after he ordered Brad to fly inside.
“Sal’s gone,” Brad had buzzed. “I don’t need protecting…”
Admittedly, it had been a scary moment. Sal had dozed off, and Brad had landed on his brother’s bare forearm. He had been flying blithely from spouse to papi to Sal for hours, but on this occasion his tiny feet must have tickled because as he woke, his enormous brother had swatted at him.
It had been from reflex, but everyone in the house had been horrified. Jim had scolded Sal, and they had both made their exit soon after.
Brad had felt bad for Sal, but he was also queasy from the adrenaline that had flooded him because of how close he had come to being squished by Sal’s smacking hand.
Although he kept buzzing a protest, Mark couldn’t understand him and persevered in his determination in doing right by him.
“We’ll have you fixed and out of that horrible body in no time,” Mark said while peering through the glass at him. His husband couldn’t stop himself, though, from frowning as he looked through the glass at his transformed spouse.
Brad felt humiliated. He had noticed the looks earlier on the faces of his father and brother. He’d been shaken when he even saw a similar expression on Mark’s handsome bearded cliffside of a face. He saw the automatic twitches in their expression when they saw him do something too much like a real insect. When he brushed his face with his forelegs or rubbed his hindlegs together. When he twitched his wings and buzzed noisily. Every action resulted in a an unguarded flash of dismay or outright repugnance on a giant face.
The fact they were so much larger and powerful only degraded him farther. As a puny housefly he was so far beneath them, but they remained solicitous of his well-being.
Too much so, perhaps. Even now, as Brad’s self-image spiraled lower, Mark was using his phone to google “What do houseflies eat?”
His expression turned even more dour as some of the answers revolted him, but he finally stumbled on a helpful passage.
“That sounds good,” he said aloud and reached for a neighboring canister. His transformed husband watched with interest as Mark’s muscular arm strong-armed the lid on the canister and reached inside to pick up a massive stainless steel scoop. He needed to improvise a few other steps, but he eventually loaded a bottle cap with some white crystals and filled another bottle cap with water.
“You stay put!” Mark ordered his spouse as he next moved to unfasten the lid on Brad’s canister. The tiny insect watched in trepidation as a giant hand reached inside twice, depositing both bottle caps on the floor of the glass container. Once he has the lid secured again, he stepped back and looked down in satisfaction.
“The website said you’ll need dependable access to food and water, so that should take care of that,” Mark announced.
Brad buzzed his wings and wondered what his husband meant to do about the malfunctioning device.
But Mark didn’t seem too ready to provide answers.
“I’ve got to get some sleep,” he announced after a terrific yawn. “Just a few hours. You have food, water, everything you could want.”
Brad’s buzzing increased. Was he serious?
Apparently, he was. Mark exited the kitchen, leaving his tiny fly spouse to his own devices for the time being.