Graphic by Gabriel Currie
The soft sheets brushed against Bugor Insecta’s skin. He felt an extreme heft in his body, like his innards had grown a dozen times denser. Bugor’s eyes blinked open as he stirred from his slumber. As he stared at the ceiling, he could not help but notice his room was darker than usual. Fifteen days and counting, Bugor thought. I feel old. Suddenly, the bug bed beneath him snapped.
Bugor looked down at his hands and saw not skinny, sticklike appendages, but gooey, peach-colored blobs of flesh. His hands roamed over his body, which was now completely imprisoned in this pink, fleshy exoskeleton.
“BZZZZ!” said a small speck in front of him. “BZZZZ!”
Bugor could not make out what it was saying. He took in his surroundings, which had once been a larger-than-life ecosystem to him, and saw broken wooden toothpicks where his bug bed once was. If this is what remains of my bug bed, then my bug wife…
“Insectlissa?!?” Bugor asked.
“BZZZ! BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ??” Insectlissa replied.
“I can’t understand you!”
“BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ.”
It was no use. Bugor was something else now, something that she would not be able to fathom, some creature that could not fly nor see ultraviolet light. How could he and Insectlissa be insect and wife? The two could not even speak, let alone copulate. A shame. Insectlissa was expecting to lay six hundred eggs on the morrow.
Bugor turned away from the buzzing insect, stepping towards the doorway. Time for work, he thought instinctively. It was then Bugor realized his hands were now too big for working at the bug factory. Bugor made a high-pitched whimper and clenched his fists. He was stuck in the form of this fat, rotund, fleshy, and utterly useless creature.
Water rolled down his face. Bugor felt his chest pulsating in distress. If he could not work or love, then what was he? Was this humanity?
Suddenly, Bugor heard noises through the oblong holes on the sides of his head. It was coming from some device in another room. This sensation was not unlike the vibrations he felt in his hairs as his Insectlissa buzzed her seductive mating call. Previously shrouded in black, bushy hair, a veiny appendage between his legs grew hard at the thought.
“I’m like ‘Hey, what’s up? Hello. Seen yo’ pretty ass soon as you came in the door.’” The singer’s voice rang through the halls. Beautiful. Was he an animal, that music could move him so? He felt as if the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for was coming to light.
