The fly, formerly physicist Brad Rivera, flew aimlessly, as flies are typically inclined to do, before coming to rest on a broad leaf upon which the bug engaged in a furious session of grooming, using wiry forelegs to clean its bulging eyes and strange face.
The leaf, which served as the insect’s perch, attached to the tip of a low branch growing from a small shade tree in the Walters-Rivera yard.
A scent arrived, detected by the pair of antenna draped to the front of the fly’s face. Motivated by the scent, the fly took flight, crossing a vast, dark sea of asphalt, arriving on the other side of the street and flying over an expanse of green lawn. The insect continued to follow an invisible but powerful scent trail, weaving in flight a couple of feet over the top of the growing grass.
The exploration ended at the rear of a massive home as the winged bug hovered over a public trash can full of debris and swarming with other flies and insects.
Without hesitation, the insect dived into the black swarm and went elbow to elbow with the other flies, pushing and scrambling for a claim on the prime location among the heaps of putrid household rubbish. Once in position, its proboscis began pumping like a piston, sucking up a feast of liquified scraps.
In the meantime inside its home of many years, the transformed man’s sibling voiced curse after curse at the stubborn Chronivac device but wisely refrained from tossing it across the room.
“Why aren’t you changing?” Sal bellowed while watching the winking lights on the device.
He had lifted the glass carefully that had kept his “brother” contained and, after a thorough study of the instructions on this occasion, as opposed to his earlier reckless blundering, pressed a button to emit the restorative beam.
“¿Qué pasa?”
The insect twitched and lifted off.
“Stop!” Sal bellowed as he watched, stunned, as his brother flew off.
The fly didn’t stop. It buzzed around the room even as Sal pleaded with it to return.
“Stay still! I’m trying to help you!”
Meanwhile, only a short distance from Sal’s distress and aggravation, an occupant of another home in the neighborhood stepped outdoors with a bag of trash, disturbing a dark swarm from the large blue plastic receptacle parked at the edge of the carport.
This time, the man paid more attention to the task and slammed down the lid after depositing the trash, depriving the swarm of insects from regaining access to the bounty held within the plastic walls.
Individual flies broke away from the swarm, which dispersed in all directions. Of the dozens of flies that had been gorging themselves, the old wag “eat, drink and be merry” might have applied. Before a new day would dawn, two fell prey to hungry sparrows, four blundered into snares woven of sticky silk strands by predatory spiders and one got splattered on the front of a motorcyclist’s visor. A couple of the flies simply shut down of old age.
As this drama unfolded outdoors, Sal was ready to pull out his hair because of his uncooperative sibling and his attempts to rectify his earlier careless handling of the Chronivac. He began to wonder if he should call for help.