The housefly that had, until recently, been a man continued.
It has been three days since the man had unwisely programmed the unaware setting on the Chronivac.
Daily, it existed. Feeding. Flying. Fucking. Grooming. Never contemplating.
No capacity for contemplation existed.
There was a time, a brief interlude, during its resting state when the fly dreamed.
Flickers of awareness as it dreamed of being a man.
Who fed. Who walked. Who fucked. Who groomed. Who contemplated.
Who contemplated plans.
The plans were always tied to an overall goal, which was to stay human after waking. But those flickers of consciousness brought that goal within reach only for it all to slip away like morning mist, time after time.
Once a waking fly again, it could not hold onto the goal. Its waking mind lacked the complexity for contemplation. For thought.
The identity existed purely in its dream state, a mirage that allowed the fly that was really a man to nightly reclaim a lover, friends, family, an existence.
Sometimes upon waking, the insect felt vaguely, briefly, unsettled, but then it would feed or fly or fuck or groom, and life would continue until the dream faded away.
It’s former reality leaked into the new one.
The dream man learned.
He remained determined.
He planted an imperative that he hoped would survive the return to waking. He had to keep it simple.
So one day when the fly woke, it felt an urge… to fly. Farther than usual. To return home.
Mark Walters was tossing out takeout containers from last night’s dinner when he attracted a fly that had been hovering near the trash can. The fly followed him back inside the house, attracted by the wafting of the man’s pungent cologne.
10:47 p.m. and the lights went out. The intruding fly had already stretched its hours of activity thanks to artificial lights and plenty of stimulation available indoors in a human habitat.
Soon after the sudden shift into darkness, the fly dreamed again.
He dreamed he was a man who nightly dreamed of being a fly.
So what was he?
By morning’s early light through the bedroom window, that question was more or less answered. It was a fly that awakened.
It was a fly that went about its day, buzzing to and fro inside the house.
On this day, however, Mark discovered a strange device that had slipped between the living room sofa and the wall.
He punched a few buttons, but the device’s power source had been drained by dozens of pointless attempts to restore the last user to his true form.
It had been four days ago that Mark walk through the front door from work a few hours earlier than expected, finding his home unexpectedly empty and taking no notice of the exit of a tiny flying insect that slipped out the front door into a wider world.
Mark was at wit’s end after four fruitless days of trying to discover why Brad had gone missing.
Momentary optimism that the device might provide a clue disappeared when he couldn’t even turn it on. He placed it on the coffee table and went to make himself a cup of coffee after another night of little sleep.
Mark heard a faint buzz and glimpsed something tiny flying near the living room curtains, but he paid little attention as he continued to the kitchen.