Flyguy Pt 2

When I wake up, there’s light shining in the room from a large window out beyond the foot of the bed. The heat through the window feels good. For a few seconds, I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who I am. I’m just sitting in a bed in the sunshine. But then, it floods back. Dr. Komodo, the orderly with the needle and me as a giant housefly. It’s like a hang over, you only remember snap shots of what happened.

I move in the bed and my hands come up. They’re human hands again, all five fingers and on human arms too. Nothing seems to be missing. Things are looking up. I’m back to my dry pink skinned self, no exo-skeleton, no third set of limbs and no restraints. It’s copasetic. I guess it really was a dream, or some hallucination like the good doc said. But, just to make sure, I look up at the ceiling and walls for suction cup marks. But there’s no sign I was up there last night, clinging to the ceiling as a scared fly. So far, the coast is clear.

I hear a knock on the door, and a small slot on the bottom opens. Someone slides in a tray, there’s a bowl of what looks like greenish tomato soup, a plate with a tri-layered club sandwich and potato chips but they’re moldy. On the side of the tray is a glass of brownish rusty water. I sit up in the bed, and twist around to put my feet, my human feet, on the floor of the room.

“How disgusting!” I yell out. “You expect me to eat this?”

I look up through a small window in the door, hoping to see the human orderly staring back at me and get ready to keep complaining. Instead, I see a long forked tongue darting across the rectangular framed window. Then a green snout appears and finally a yellow eye with a sharp dagger for an iris. It blinks. Holy shit! I’m back to being human, but they’re all still lizards.

“Hey,” I hear from somewhere near the floor. “Hey! You gonna eat that? It looks delicious.”

I look around. I don’t see anything.

“Who said that?” I ask, a little self-consciously into the air. I keep looking around, worried that I’ve gone from visual hallucinations to the audio kind. You know, classic schizo behavior. And things were looking so good just a few seconds ago. But, all I can see is my human body, the bed, the window and the lizard eyeing me from outside. He’s waiting for me to eat up, but the food makes me want to vomit.

“Hey,” I yell out toward the orderly. “Do you expect me to eat this? It’s rotten!”

The eye winks again. I’m not sure if that was for me or it’s just that lizards blink a lot. Reptiles. They’re hard to read.

“Did you hear me!?” I yell, oh what the hell, that lizard doesn’t care.

“He-llo?” it’s the voice again. “I’m talking down here,”


That’s when I see him and I can’t believe it. There’s a fly on the soup bowl and he’s looking right at me. I think about swatting him away, but I hold myself back. It’s not every day you have a conversation with a fly.

“Uh, hi,” I say, feeling like I’ve lost my mind. “I don’t think I’ll be eating any of that, so why don’t you feel free.”

I’m thinking I could ask the lizard for a new soup, which would seem pretty ridiculous since the whole thing is bad. But I mean, this is the oldest complaint in the book. However, I’m not sure how the orderly would respond, he’d probably just continue silently winking. Anyway, I’m curious what the talking fly might say.


“Thanks,” says the fly, moving down the bowl. “I won’t eat much.”

And with that, he sticks his stalk-like mouth into it and starts sucking. He’s lapping it up, although without a tongue I’m not sure lapping really applies. He takes a break and looks over at me, cleaning his mouth with a leg. “So, how long you been in the joint?”

“The joint,” I say, more a statement then a question. “The joint?”

“The joint you know, the lock-up, the can, the clink, the farm.”

“Ya, I got it,” I say.

“I’ve been inside since me and the boys tried to rob a nursery for fertilizer,” he says.
“You know, one day you’re happy as a maggot on… well you know, and the next you’re in here. Anyway, glad to make your acquaintance.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I say. “Yeah, you know I don’t know what I’m doing here. Everything before yesterday is a haze. They haven’t told me where I am or anything. But you, you’re so small couldn’t you just fly out an open window, find a crack somewhere, under a door? How hard can it be?”

I swear the fly is rolling its compound eyes at me. He’s flown over to the ripe club sandwich, has a moldy crumb in one pad and cocks his head at an angle. He throws down the crumb. “You don’t think I’ve tried that?” He says buzzing with anger. “I’ve tried everything, holes in corners, under doors, over doors, through an open window. Anything to get out of here. Any crack in their defenses, I’ve tried to find a hole. But the lizards, man, they’ve got it covered. They just sit there, watching, always watching. Those tongues are just waiting to catch you. But that’s where you come in, you’re gonna help me bust out of here.”

“I’ve got enough troubles of my own,” I say. “One day, I’m talking to a komodo dragon, the next a fly is eating my lunch.”

“Come on!” says the fly, holding his arm pads away from him plaintively. “Flies got to stick together. You know I’ve got your thorax!”

“Flies got to stick together? I guess you haven’t noticed that I’m human!” I say, pinching my wrist for effect. I stop, the fly buzzes over to the water glass, he carefully makes his way down the inner lip using those suction cup pads to keep from falling in. It looks tricky. The fly sticks his mouth into the water. I wait and he finishes and turns around and flies out of the glass. He buzzes up near my head.

“Listen buddy,” he says. “That’s just lizard propaganda. You’re a fly and you always have been.”

“So what are you saying, I’m a giant house fly? Or maybe a horse fly, right?” I’m tired of this, and turn towards the door hoping to start banging on it and get someone’s attention. This is all too crazy and I just can’t take it anymore, when I push against the door it slowly swings open. The lizard forgot to lock it!

“Listen!” says the bug buzzing around my head. “I know this is hard to believe, but the reptiles have you so hopped up you wouldn’t know your mandible from a hole in the wall and the longer you stay in here, the more likely you’ll end up eaten by that Komodo Dragon.”

Flyguy Pt 1

I open my eyes.
Nothing.
Total blackness.
Where am I?

I’m on a bed, when I move my fingers, I feel sheets, a comforter. There’s a pillow under my head.

The sheets feel different than mine. They’re not mine. Mine are soft, these feel new or starched like in a hospital. I try to get up, but then feel the straps along my chest. I try to move my legs, but they’re restrained too.

What’s going on? I struggle.

The door on my right opens. I can turn my head and see someone enter. The light is so bright and my eyes aren’t used to it. So all I can make out is an arm with a watch on the wrist. I think it’s a man’s watch. He’s holding a needle.

I feel the pressure of his finger on my arm, the point pushing into my skin and the sting when he injects. I drift off again.

When I open my eyes, I’m in an office. I’m sitting in a chair, restrained and in front of me is a lizard dressed in a white doctor’s jacket.

No, that’s not quite right. He’s got a human body, he’s wearing the jacket and I see arms and he’s wearing pants and shoes. His hands are pale, almost green. But it’s the head that worries me. It’s a lizard’s head all right, right on that human body. And if I’m not mistaken it’s a komodo dragon head. There’s no doubt about it, I saw those nature specials when I was a kid. He’s got the long snout and the fat tongue darting in and out with every breath. Yep, he’s a komodo dragon. Definitely.

“So, how do you feel today?” asks the komodo dragon nonchalantly, leaning back in his desk chair and holding a pencil in front of him with his thumb and forefinger. It’s a classic ‘I’m a doctor’ pose.

“I’m fine,” I say. I’ve got to be dreaming. The office is small; almost a box really. In front of me is the lizard’s desk, and then the lizard. And behind him is a full bookcase. I can see the Physician’s Desk Reference, some works on psychology, even some herpetology studies on turtles, lizards and snakes. And then there’s a few works by Nietzche, Satre, Camus and Freud. “But, you’re the strangest looking doctor I’ve ever seen.”

“Ooh?” he asks, in that professional bemused tone that doctors make when they sense you’re about to give them something juicy. “Why do you say that Stuart?”

Well, the komodo dragon knows my name, that’s interesting. As he’s talking, his tongue comes out of his mouth exposing two rows of serrated short teeth. Lots of them and they’re really sharp. The tongue flies up about a foot above us and catches what I think is a fly. And then it darts back in there. You can’t deny he’s quick.

“Well, first off you’re a shrink with a komodo dragon head and that’s kind of unusual,” I shoot back. He chews over the fly in his mouth and then swallows it down. “Also, you just ate a fly that you caught with your tongue and some would say that’s a little rude since we’re talking.”

“A komodo dragon you say?” He opens a manila folder on his desk and writes that one down with his pencil. I swear the komodo dragon is smiling. But since I’ve never seen a lizard, let alone any reptile, smile before I’m hard pressed to describe it. I’d say the sides of his long slit of a mouth creased slightly up. It looked like a smile to me. Who am I to say whether lizards smile or not. And anyway, if a komodo dragon shrink is sitting in front of you, you better hope he’s smiling otherwise you’re toast. “Mmmm. I think you’re hallucinating Stuart, that’s a common side effect of the meds we’re giving you. I’ll tell the orderlies to lower your dosage.”

I can’t keep from smiling myself. Perhaps it’s a dream, anyway I’m still hung up on the lizard grin. “Ok doc,” I say. “You’re the expert.”

I look down at my arms and hands where they’ve been restrained by leather straps. But instead of my normal dry, but tender skin, I see a hard, black exoskeleton and where I should have hands, instead I see little suction cup pads. When I look up, I suddenly see the lizard shrink reflected hundreds of times, each one a little lizard all doing the same thing. I realize I’m looking through compound eyes.

So, now I’m a fly, I think. That’s bad news when your shrink is a fly-eating lizard. He’s licking his face with that long tongue and I think if I were just a bit smaller he’d chomp me down too.

“Maybe we should continue this later,” he says. “You seem distracted.”

He pushes a buzzer with his pale human hand, which brings two thuggish orderlies through the door behind me. I don’t even need to turn, I’m a fly after all so can see behind me pretty easily. I see hundreds of reflections of them. They’re lizard headed too and their tongues are darting in and out each time they breath. They undo the straps and lift me up. I suddenly realize I can’t walk. My back legs are so thin and puny. they weren’t made for walking upright, so when I put my weight on them they just buckle. As I stretch a little I hear a buzz and feel a breeze from small filmy wings that extend behind me.

They take me back to my room, grabbing my legs on either side of me. They walk me in, and then lock the door behind them. It gives me a chance to explore my new body. My arms and legs have become almost indistinguishable and I look down to see a third set of limbs, buds really poking out from under my hospital gown, growing from what used to be my waist but is now more of a fat thorax, a bulbous, elongating black shell.

I’m leaning down on my four legs, wings fluttering but too small to actually give me any lift. I suddenly feel an itch behind my eye, and I scratch it with my front leg, just like any other fly would do. I gingerly push the sheets on my bed back with my suction cups and try to get in. As I try to get comfortable, I flip over by accident onto my back. I can’t move and start buzzing and moving my head around, my legs dangling in the air waving around ineffectually. I’m panicking. Now I know what flies feel like on the windowsill. I don’t want to end up dead, on my back like this. I manage to extend my wings just enough to flip me over and I jump out of bed again. Human beds aren’t comfortable for flies. Instead, I go over to a wall and put a pad against it. It sticks. I have an idea. I gently put the other leg up to the wall and then starting climbing. I make it up to the ceiling and as I rotate my head, I can see the entire room easily, the door and the bed. I can even do a little self-grooming with a leg, itch behind my eye. No one can swat me here. As I start to fall asleep, the image of hundreds of doors, beds and walls wink out one after the other.