srcXor

Metamorphosis

He could smell them.

He could smell their sickly-acrid stink.

His eyes were still closed, but Greg knew what he would find. It had happened before. He would get out of bed, creep down the hall, and then carefully, silently, reach around the corner into the kitchen to flip the light switch. There they would be: Hundreds of tiny, quivering bodies — cockroaches.

Then they would run. Even if Greg had a can of insecticide ready, by the time the spray hit, the roaches would be gone. Behind the cabinets, beneath the grille of the fan, through holes and cracks one never suspected, they disappeared.

Each time this happened it would take forever to persuade the landlord to send the exterminator. Eventually the man would come. He wore a soiled white uniform with a logo on the front featuring a giant ant with two red “X”s in place of eyes. The man would trap and spray, the problem would disappear for a while, but, sooner or later, the cockroaches would return.

So Greg got up, already disgusted. The kitchen was in the back, away from the windows. Despite the fact that it was morning, it would be perfectly dark until he flipped the switch. He crept down the hall, and then reached through the entryway. With a swift motion he turned on the light.

Nothing was there. The counters were spotless, the coffee grinder and the coffee machine sparkled. Had he caught a glimpse of even a single roach? Perhaps the slight flutter of one or two small scurrying things had been present and then vanished. Greg could not be sure. Nevertheless, the odor, distinct, hovered in the air.

“They knew I was coming,” he thought to himself. He had learned from a television program that cockroaches could detect the slightest vibration. Greg stepped over to the refrigerator where a magnet held his shopping list, took the list down, and added the word “Pesticide.”

He had set down the bag of coffee beans next to the electric grinder and was opening it when the doorbell rang. He tightened his lips. “Who the hell at this hour?” he thought. Setting the beans aside, he checked his robe to make sure he’d not left anything exposed, and then walked to the door. “Who is it?” he asked loudly.

A voice came through the door, “Oh Greg, sorry to disturb you. It’s me, Mrs. Purchuk.”

Greg sniffed. Mrs. Purchuk was the wife of the manager. She was a plump woman, in her early thirties, but looking several years older. Greg avoided her whenever possible. However, once a month he was required to deliver his rent at the ground floor office that was an extension of Mr. and Mrs. Purchuk’s own apartment. One would ring a small bell on a counter, and a moment later Mrs. Purchuk would come bustling through the door. Behind her one could often see a pair of grubby infants standing and staring, grappling the bars of their playpen.

Mrs. Purchuk continued talking through Greg’s door, saying something about how the man from the cable TV company was coming that day, and would Greg mind...

He sighed and opened the door...

And gasped... An involuntary spasm raced upwards through his gut and chest, and then froze in his throat.

“Are you ok,?” Mrs. Purchuk interrupted herself.

Greg willed himself to stand in place, while still trying to make sense of what was before his eyes. If only he could take a minute, he felt sure that things would right themselves. His head would clear and Mrs. Purchuk would return to her normal appearance.

She looked up intently at Greg. But, instead of the watery pale-blue eyes that he had barely remarked before, she was glaring at him through two enormous half-globes. Edged with rims at least a centimeter wide, and covered with a pearlescent membrane, the monstrous eyes covered no less than half of her head.

As she spoke, Mrs. Purchuk’s mouth moved in a strange way. Instead of her lower jaw pivoting up and down, the opening between her lips had become a vertical slit that expanded and contracted from side to side.

“Are you all right?” Mrs. Purchuk repeated, her voice tinged with doubt.

“Yes, err... No.” Greg croaked, desperate to retreat back into his room. “I’m feeling a little off... can’t this wait?”

“It’ll only take a sec. Anyway, the cable man will be by sometime today. I didn’t want to just let him in without letting you know... and Greg...” Here Mrs. Purchuk pursed her vertical lips, “I kinda hate to bring this up, but there’s a bad smell coming from your apartment. Could you check it? I don’t know, maybe you left some fish or something in the garbage?”

“Sure. Sure! I’ll check it right away. Yes, and you can let the cable man in. I’ll be at work... see you later... I really gotta get going.”

Mrs. Purchuk continued to glare. Greg had a feeling from the way that she leaned toward him that she was having trouble seeing — no wonder with those grotesque eyes!

“You certain you’ll be ok? You sure you want to go to work? I might look in on you later, just to see how you’re doing. If I can bring you anything — that is if you don’t start feeling better soon — let me know?”

With one hand Greg made a vague gesture meant to be a parting wave, while with his other he pushed on the door. He grunted a final “bye,” and then, snapping the door shut, blocked out Mrs. Purchuk’s strange new face.

•

With the door closed, Greg slid to the floor, his palms pressed to his forehead.

Am I going crazy?... is this how it starts?... What the hell am I going to do now...?

He closed his eyes. He tried to bring his breath back to a normal rhythm.

Think!

He opened his eyes and looked at his bare feet.

Ok, I’ve had a little incident here. Nothing I can’t handle. All I’ve got to do is act like everything is ok. What’s the worst they can do to me? Panic and they’ll think I’m going wacko. I’ll lose the job. I’ll lose the condo. Show a little courage here, some mental fortitude...

Slowly he pushed himself up and then walked to the bathroom. His heart racing, he felt an immediate need to examine himself in a mirror. No, he looked perfectly normal. Whatever had affected Mrs. Purchuk had, mercifully, left him untouched. Granted that small relief, he calmed himself and began his morning ritual. What else could he do? With care, he shaved, showered, put on his clothes, and prepared to step out into the world.

Before he left, however, Greg switched on the television. To his dismay, the hosts of the morning program he favored were showing signs of the same changes that had disfigured Mrs. Purchuk. He flipped through the channels. It was always the same. Apparently, everyone in the world was undergoing a bizarre transformation. He, alone, it seemed, was unaffected.

Greg sat down to consider his next step. But, no matter how he racked his brains, the only thing he could think of was to proceed normally, to act, as best he could, as though nothing unusual was happening.

Cautiously opening his door, he began the passage down the hall. He came to the elevator, thought about being enclosed with one of the other tenants, and then turned to the stairwell instead.

He passed out of the building, briefcase in hand, and walked towards the road. Although the morning was cool, he could feel the sweat forming under his collar. He paused for a moment and wiped his neck with his handkerchief.

At last he reached the bus stop, going over in his mind how he would handle this next challenge. Apparently he had succeeded in not alarming Mrs. Purchuk, but what would happen as he came face to face with others?

The bus arrived. He stepped upwards, dropped his fare into the hopper without looking at the driver, and then quickly found a seat. He fixed his eyes alternately on his hands and on the road passing outside his window. At first, he did not dare to look at his fellow passengers. Somewhere along the route, though, he steeled himself and stole a glance. His fear was confirmed. Everyone else was indisputably undergoing a metamorphosis into monstrous, insect-like creatures.

The change seemed to be progressive. Surreptitiously, Greg examined the face of a woman sitting in a seat on the opposite side of the aisle. Like Mrs. Purchuk, her eyes were goggle-like, but they had fractured into a multitude of distinct facets. Like Mrs. Purchuck, the woman’s mouth was vertical. In addition, small appendages were forming at the sides of the slit, and she was hunched over as though she was in the process of devolving from an erect posture.

The bus jerked madly with every stop and start. The driver was having difficulty steering and was swearing quietly to himself, his words a blend of clicks and squeaks.

When the bus arrived at Greg’s stop he descended and crossed the street. Moving rapidly to avoid everyone’s gaze, he entered the building where he worked as a claims reviewer for an insurance company

His job was mind numbing, which was a serious problem since constant care was required. Number of cases handled, errors committed, all were monitored and recorded by an unblinking electronic tracking system. One couldn’t afford a moment’s lapse.

The reports generated by that system would be particularly important this day. Greg had felt compelled to come to work, despite all that had happened, because he was scheduled to receive his yearly performance review.

The review by Miss Mondragon should have been cause enough for anxiety, but to have to endure it under these circumstances was as much as Greg could bear. Still, he had carefully tabulated his results from the prior weeks, and he felt reasonably confident that the review would be positive.

Greg’s feelings about Miss Mondragon were ambivalent. To be sure, he always acted in the deferential manner appropriate for a subordinate. However, Miss Mondragon was uncommonly pretty. She might even have been a bit younger than Greg. He knew that she had an advanced business degree, and that she’d been recruited by the company directly into the entry-level management position she now held. Her job was clearly a starting point. She was on a track that would lead swiftly up the corporate ladder.

Miss Mondragon took her work seriously. She dressed primly in a businesswoman’s suit, complete with pin stripes and a bit of a white ruffle at the collar. Her posture was particularly upright, her voice brusque. She kept a serious look on her face most of the time. Once or twice, though, Greg had seen another look pass across her face, the wide and open smile of a happy, young woman, eager to please. He had seen it once as she exchanged words with a handsome UPS courier as she signed off on a package.

Once, briefly, Greg, too, had received that same look from Miss Mondragon. It had been at the company Christmas party.

Perhaps Miss Mondragon had a little too much wine. Whatever the reason, when Greg encountered her on the patio of the luxurious home where the party took place, she had greeted him with a broad, gleaming smile, and a tone of voice that seemed intimate. She was joking casually. She even put her hand on his forearm. It was the first and only time that she had touched him.

However, back on the job, Miss Mondragon reverted to her customary affect, not allowing the slightest hint to escape that she ever had or ever could regard Greg with more than professional disinterest.

Still, he built up a series of elaborate fantasies around the encounter on the patio.

Those fantasies alone would have complicated Greg’s feelings about the upcoming interview, but now he had a far greater reason to be troubled by the prospect of being in such close physical proximity to Miss. Mondragon. Would she sense that he was different from herself and the others — and how would she react?

Inside the building, Greg nervously crossed through the warren of cubicles, avoiding any co-worker whom he might be expected to greet. Deftly, he slipped into his own niche, settled into his chair and logged onto his computer. Soon he was going through the stack of claims piled in his inbox. His desk, fortunately, was arranged in such a way that anyone passing by was unlikely to try to catch his eye. Once, however, he sensed someone pausing just outside his cubicle. Greg heard the person sniff twice, loudly, and then pass on.

Greg worked through the morning until the time came for the review. His phone rang, summoning him. He stacked his papers, checked his composure, and then left.

Miss Mondragon’s own cubicle was not far, just a few steps and a few turns through the maze-like corridors made from low, moveable dividers. Naturally, Miss Mondragon’s cubicle was much larger than Greg’s and was situated so she could stand up and look out of a window if she pleased. Greg stood quietly at the entryway until she noticed his presence. She looked up briefly, gestured to indicate that it would only be a moment more, and then, after signing a few papers, invited him in with the professional cheerfulness that a person in power utilizes to ease such situations. Greg mumbled something in response and sat. There was a large expanse of desk between them. The distance comforted him.

Miss Mondragon had momentarily turned her attention back to the papers. When she looked up, Greg took in her changed appearance with an inward tremor, but this sensation was mild compared to the shocks he had endured at the beginning of the day. If he was not becoming reconciled to the situation, he was, at least, learning to cope.

Miss Mondragon’s voice, though shot through with odd harmonics, seemed human enough. She sounded the same note, apparently benign, and yet impersonal, that he had come to expect when she spoke. Her face, however, was indecipherable. All the cues upon which Greg would have normally relied were missing. No arching eyebrows, no intelligible expressions of eye and eyelid, no mobile mouth and lips. In fact, everything about Miss Mondragon’s new face seemed mechanical, only incidentally connected to the words she was speaking.

In addition to the faceted, saucer eyes and the vertical mouth surrounded with complicated appendages, Greg noticed two buds forming upon Miss Mondragon’s forehead. Undoubtedly these would develop, with time, into antennae. Greg thought that he could even make out the beginnings of three tiny simple eyes a bit above the bridge of Miss Mondragon’s vestigial nose.

Miss Mondragon began, “Well, Greg, what do you think about your performance this year?”

This felt like a trap. Suppose he estimated his performance too highly? Wouldn’t he appear foolish? On the other hand, if he shortchanged himself, wouldn’t the company be perfectly willing to keep his pay capped at its current level?

“I think I’ve had a pretty good year, Miss Mondragon. I’m quite sure that I met all my quotas. My error rate is almost always in the green levels. My knowledge of the regs has grown so much stronger — I’m taking a lot less time looking things up in the manuals. You can see how that’s improved my output!”

When Greg stopped to catch his breath, he realized that he had been speaking much too rapidly. He peered at Miss. Mondragon’s face, trying to make out her reaction. The problem was that there was nothing to interpret. Her head had the look of a helmet, a static shell that concealed whatever was inside. The only movement of her face was the rather disconcerting random twitching of the small appendages at the sides of her mouth. Greg had read somewhere that the eyes were windows into the soul. Miss Mondragon’s enormous, faceted eyes merely reflected whatever lay before them. As he looked into those eyes, Greg could see only his own face repeated over and over.

“Well Greg,” Miss Mondragon began, “I agree that you’ve had a good year.”

Miss Mondragon leaned forward, as if to emphasize whatever point was to come next. There was, however, something a little awkward about the way that she canted her head. Greg couldn’t help but wonder if she, like Mrs. Purchuk, was having difficulty with her vision.

“Yes, Greg. I’d say you’ve had a perfectly acceptable year.”

His hopes sank as he absorbed the demotion of “good” to “acceptable.”

“I think that the important thing to focus on now is how you can improve during this coming reporting period,” Miss Mondragon continued. “Your productivity hasn’t been bad. I don’t want to leave you with the impression that we’re dissatisfied. However, at this stage... let’s see, you’ve been with us three years now?... we’d really like to see those stats up just a bit...”

Greg wasn’t sure what to say. He tried to project a fitting degree of compliance and concern by interjecting the words “Of course...” whenever Miss Mondragon paused. The remainder of the interview did not take long. Soon he found that a piece of paper had been thrust towards him. He made a brief show of reading it, only noticing the concluding lines where a series of benchmarks were checked, most next to the words “Meets Expectations,” while one or two were checked by the words “Needs Improvement.”

He signed the paper and slid it back towards Miss Mondragon. She fumbled with it a bit, then thanked Greg and explained that he would be receiving his copy in a few days. At this she stood up, and Greg followed her example.

He was about to turn and exit the cubicle when Miss Mondragon began speaking again. The tone of her voice had turned apologetic. “You know, Greg, I’m picking up a strange smell in the building today. Please forgive. I’m going to have the air system people check it. If other people ask about it, would you tell them that we’re looking into it? Do you smell it too?”

Greg, indeed, could smell something strange. A slightly acrid scent — It seemed familiar. Agreeing that something should be done about the air system, which had frequently given trouble, Greg turned and exited the cubicle.

He spent the rest of the morning in an agitated state. He kept returning to the lackluster review he had received from Miss Mondragon, though he did stop once to admit to himself that this was a distraction, at least, from the strange events of the morning. Eventually, though, he was able to lose himself in the mechanical routine of his work.

Greg startled when his co-workers began to leave the office. It was as though he had been in a dream. Normally, he would have left precisely at five o’clock. This day, he decided it would be wiser to wait and let the building empty.

Once at the bus stop, he stood in as unobtrusive a manner as possible while secretly examining the others. They had become even more dramatically insect-like. Some were so bent that their arms nearly touched the ground. In the middle of one man’s chest an additional pair of limbs was growing. Clothing was beginning to bulge and to burst.

Greg noticed that there were fewer cars than normal on the street, and that those that were running were moving unusually slowly and, perhaps, a little erratically. Squinting through the glare of the low sun, he made out a bug-like face pressed up to the windshield of a passing car, a tangle of appendages wrapped around the steering wheel.

The bus arrived. Greg boarded and sought a place to sit as far removed as possible from the other passengers. He found a newspaper that someone had left and held it up so that it hid his face.

The bus lurched as it came to and pulled away from stops. Passengers exited and entered. Greg continued to pretend that he was reading his paper.

The bus had traveled less than a mile when Greg felt a presence. He looked beneath the bottom edge of the newspaper to see a small person in a plaid skirt standing very close at his side. The little girl had lifted the bottom corner of Greg’s paper and was looking up at him with what must have been curiosity.

“Hi there, Mister.”

He could not avoid looking back directly at the child. If anything, her enormous eyes took up an even larger proportion of her head than was the case with the adults. Two multi-seqmented antennae waved inquisitively from her forehead and there was only a small bump where one would expect to find a nose. But a new development particularly caught his attention. Framing the child’s mouth were two sharply pointed, shining, black mandibles. He thought of the horns of a miniature fighting bull. The vertical mouth barely moved as the child spoke, and her voice emanated from somewhere deep behind the slit. Other tiny, mysterious appendages wriggled in seemingly uncoordinated patterns, while the large hooked mandibles clashed, scissors-like, at random intervals.

“Oh, hello, young lady,” Greg responded curtly.

“You know, Mister,” the little girl began to reply slowly, “I hate to say this...” she now squeezed further under Greg’s newspaper, pressing closer to him, “...but, you don’t smell so good. You know...,” she waited again as though considering her words. Then, suddenly, she shouted so loudly that everyone on the bus could hear, “YOU STINK!”

Involuntarily, Greg’s own mouth opened wide. From somewhere above, he heard a mother’s voice blurt, “Valerie! Stop that this instant.” At the same moment the little girl was jerked from beneath Greg’s paper, as her mother began a series of apologies. Greg replied with assurances that no harm was done, children will be children, etc., all the while attempting to screen himself as much as possible with his newspaper. Eventually order was restored, but Greg heard the little girl whispering to her mother, “He looks funny too!”

The impulse to escape from the horrid little girl prompted Greg to get off of the bus well before his usual stop. Then he remembered the shopping list in his wallet and that it had been his plan all along to stop at the store before coming home.

The supermarket that Greg usually shopped was several stops further, and would be full of people. He began looking out the bus window, hoping to find a place where he might pass unnoticed. A little way ahead, he saw the sign of the small convenience store that he sometimes patronized late at night when the large supermarket was closed. He pulled on the signal cord and got off.

The store was a mom-and-pop affair. It survived only because it was in a rundown section of town that wasn’t attractive to the better-known competition. The single storefront window was plastered with advertisements for cigarettes and soft drinks. A few dead spiders and dust balls had collected in the bottom of the display.

Leaving the natural light behind and entering the greenish flicker and hum of the fluorescent fixtures, Greg set off a “ding-dong” chime. Inside, an older man was sitting behind a high counter, watching one of two monitors that were suspended from the the ceiling. The smaller monitor, connected to a security camera, displayed Greg’s form obscurely in terms of blue scan lines. On the other monitor an athletic contest was being televised. A squad of giant red ants tangled with another team whose members were smaller and much darker. Greg noticed the man’s antennae waving wildly for a moment, then holding still, then waving again, apparently in sympathy with the action on the screen.

Greg wandered down the aisles. The store was so small that a quick circuit passed by every shelf. He picked up a few of the sundries on his list. It took only a moment longer to find a shelf with a suspended placard saying “Pesticides.” Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be any pesticides left. The adjacent items — matches, automotive oil, etc. — had crowded into the space where the pesticides were supposed to be. He hunched down, moving boxes and cans aside. Finally, hidden behind a tin of brake fluid, he found a can that was labeled “BUG-B-GONE.” Greg tucked the can under his arm and headed towards the shopkeeper .

Once at the counter, he set his things on the ledge and began searching through his wallet. The old man turned, got up from his seat, and began to go through the pile of items.

The man picked up the insecticide, turned it over once or twice, examining it carefully. Then he began to speak.

“Ah... You realize what you’ve got here is a deadly poison...”

Greg, quizzical, looked up from his wallet.

“In fact,” the man continued, “I was pretty sure I’d taken all of these off the shelf. In any case, you shouldn’t mind my asking, given the nature of this particular item, just what you intend to do with it?”

Greg began to sputter, “I, ah, have a little problem at home, and I...”

“You know,” the old man interrupted, speaking more vigorously now, “I don’t think that I’m going to sell this to you. See that sign?” He gestured behind him with his hand-claw, “It says We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anybody... ” The man paused, then continued, speaking slowly and emphasizing each word, “I don’t trust you. Nope, don’t trust you a bit...”

At this point the old man leaned far forward in order to examine Greg more closely. His antennae and mouthparts began to wave rapidly...

“In fact, I've got a good mind to report you to the police...”

Greg began to retreat, explaining that it was all a misunderstanding, that he’d be going, no reason to get upset... This submissiveness, however, seemed only to enflame the old man who was now coming around the counter, waving the very canister of insecticide Greg had wanted to purchase, almost as though he intended to use the spray with Greg as the target.

The old man was shouting loudly now. “And what’s more, buddy, something about you doesn’t smell right! Something’s wrong — very, very wrong with you — POLICE, POLICE!”

At this, Greg turned and ran. He dashed through the doors of the shop, darted down an alley, squeezed between two delivery vans, and came out, gasping. He thought to remove his jacket and to button up his collar in an effort, however ineffectual, to change his appearance. Following a zigzag path through the back streets, walking as rapidly as he could without drawing attention to himself, he made his way home. When he finally got to the condominiums, he skirted the main entrance and went up the back stairwell.

Once in his unit, Greg slammed the door shut, rapidly locked it, and then collapsed on his sofa with his head in his hands.

He sat that way for half an hour, trembling and sobbing, until his terror exhausted itself. Then, calmed, he began to think: What was happening, and what was he to do next?

He turned over the events of the day in his mind: The difficulties of the insect-people and the insect-bus driver steering their vehicles, Miss Mondragon’s fumbling and apparent problems with her vision, the outbursts from the child on the bus and the old man in the store about his smell. Greg recalled that somewhere he had read that insects could not see very well and that they understood their world in terms of chemical cues such as odors. Now things began to make sense. The strange smells that he detected in his apartment and in the office and everywhere else were emanating from all the people around him in their newly transformed state. Everyone was exuding identifying scents, markers that indicated their acceptability. He, alone, was not expressing the correct signs. When others complained of smelling something foul, or when the old man shouted about Greg’s odor, it was, in fact, Greg’s odor that they all found so offensive — so alien.

But what to do? Greg thought a little longer. Then it came to him.

•

The following morning, Greg quickly changed, went to the kitchen, and then picked out an empty glass jar and a pair of gloves. Next, he slipped down the hall of the condominium and out a back way that led to the gardens. It was too early for any of the other residents to be about. Once he was sure that he was alone, he set to hunting. Examining the undersides of leaves and stones, poring over the dirt surface, Greg looked for, and found, insects. His fingers protected by the gloves, he began to pick up any insect that he was quick enough to pinch — squirming caterpillars, frenetic beetles, a dying butterfly, its wings too frayed to provide escape. He plopped his victims into the bottle. The gloves were the rubbery sort meant to protect hands from the ravages of dishwater. Consequently, they interfered with delicacy of touch. Most of the insects that Greg picked up were badly damaged by the time they ended up in his bottle. Still, they wriggled with a stubborn tenacity to life. By the time that Greg felt he had enough for his purpose, the jar was seething with minute, animated forms.

Back in the kitchen, Greg got down the Osterizer from the cabinet and placed it in its cradle. He removed the plug in the lid, rolled and inserted a funnel of newspaper, and then, finally, emptied his victims into the chamber.

He watched a moment as they clambered up the sides of the glass. Some might make it up an inch or so, but inevitably tumbled back. Greg straightened up, reached for the switch, and in a moment, the contents of the Osterizer were reduced to a green soup.

In his bathroom cabinet he found several containers that might serve to deliver a spray. There were some decongestants and a pump driven deodorant. Greg emptied their contents into the sink, poured his solution of insects into the empty containers and then replaced the nozzles. Soon he would be ready to venture back into the world.

At last, he sprayed himself liberally, and then headed out of the condominium. Catching the bus he rode a few stops down the line, watching carefully to see if anyone paid attention to him.

Alighting, Greg took a short walk and came to the store that was his goal. Above him was a garish sign proclaiming “Bob’s Costume Wonderland.” In years past, Greg had gone to “Bob’s” to buy masks and other paraphernalia for Halloween or for costume parties. He knew exactly what he was looking for. Leaving the bright sidewalk, he passed through the door into the dark clutter of the shop. A few minutes later, he exited, clutching his prize. It was the mask of a bug, made of transparent green plastic, with two large, spotted eyes, two small antennae, and a sort of beak. One put the mask on much like an oversized pair of goggles, the beak covering the nose.

He spent the remainder of that Saturday as well as Sunday holed up in his apartment. He could tell by watching television and sometimes by peeking out his window, that the transformation that had affected everyone else in the world was nearly complete. The people who appeared on the television screen or who passed below him in the parking lot, now scurried on four legs, and utilized an additional pair of thoracic appendages to manipulate objects, much as they had once used arms and hands. Everyone was equipped with the fearsome sickle-like jaws that Greg first encountered with the little girl on the bus. Greg could no longer detect sideways movement from the mouth slit when someone was speaking. The voices, now sounding utterly synthetic, came from somewhere deep in the thorax or perhaps lower. Clothing no longer fit. Shreds and tatters of cloth clung to the odd protuberances and spikes that adorned the body surfaces of the insect-people.

Not wishing to go out unless it was absolutely necessary, he fed on the last of the bread and milk in his refrigerator. He wasn’t hungry, but he forced himself, feeling the need to keep his strength up in order to face what was to come.

Monday morning arrived. This would be the real test. Greg dressed himself as usual, sprayed himself thoroughly with his bug-scent, and then put on his mask. He placed one of the spray bottles into his briefcase.

Leaving the condominiums, Greg boldly passed through the main foyer. He even hailed Mrs. Purchuk, who happened to be at her counter as he walked by. She greeted him perfunctorily. So far, so good. Greg noticed her children through the doorway behind her. Lolling in the playpen, they had been transformed into giant white grubs.

While waiting at the bus stop, a passing thought deflated his self-assurance. What if his spray lost its effectiveness with time? Perhaps he should have mixed up a fresh batch that morning?

Too late. The bus arrived, and Greg, resigned, got on.

He had intended to sit next to someone as a kind of a test, but with his new doubts, he again chose a place well out of the way. Fortunately, the ride passed without incident. Arriving at work he discreetly made his way to his cubicle. He sat down and plunged into his caseload. In order to see his papers clearly, he pulled the bug mask up a bit on his forehead, in the same manner that he might have used to pull a pair of sunglasses up out of the way.

After an hour or so, he began to worry. Slipping the bottle of bug solution from his brief case, he quickly looked about to be sure that no one was observing, then sprayed himself. He sniffed. He really couldn’t tell whether the spray helped him to better match the strange odors hanging everywhere in the air. His own sense of smell was rather weak. Nevertheless, he convinced himself that there must be something distinguishable in the spray. He’d made it this far, hadn’t he? He went back to his papers.

He repeated the pattern throughout the day, working for a while, then pausing to refresh the scent he had prepared. In the mid-afternoon, however, disaster struck.

He had pulled out the bottle and shaken it in case there had been settling. He unscrewed the cap and lifted the bottle above his head as if he were about to take a shower. The procedure had become so routine that he no longer bothered to look behind to be sure that no one was witnessing his performance. He screwed his eyes shut to keep the spray out. It was then that Miss Mondragon burst into his cubicle...

“Oh Greg, could you look at these...”

Greg, startled, stood up and turned abruptly. The bottle flew from his hand, bounced off the cubicle wall, then fell to the floor, where the nozzle popped off, spilling the solution into the carpet. As Greg spun to face Miss Mondragon, he realized that his mask was hoisted up onto his forehead. In a panic, he grabbed for it and pulled it down into place. But it was too late.

“What on earth is going on here?” Miss Mondragon demanded. She bent forward, her antennae and labial palps waving in mad circles. She was attempting to take in and to process a flood of contradictory cues.

Greg jumped from behind his desk and began to stutter, “I... I’m not feeling so well today, Miss Mondragon. I really must leave. It’s an emergency. I... I really am sorry, please forgive me... I’ll be much better tomorrow...”

He pushed by Miss Mondragon, rushed through the twisting corridors, and then burst from the building.

•

He didn’t go to work the next day. Instead, he retreated to the refuge of his bedroom. The shades were tightly shut. It was a twilight world, illuminated only by the dim flicker of the television. The only sounds were the disjointed volleys of music, laugh tracks, car engines revving, and unintelligible dialog burbling out of the television speakers. Greg, his knees pulled to his chest, sat in his bed, propped against a pile of pillows and covered up to his neck with blankets and bed spread. He hadn’t bothered to change the clothes he’d been wearing when he ran from the office. The bug mask was on the dresser.

There wasn’t much left to eat. At one point he picked through a package of reconstituted potato chips, but he wasn’t hungry. The phone rang several times. He ignored it. That evening Mrs. Purchuk rang the doorbell. When Greg didn’t answer she knocked forcefully. When Greg still didn’t answer, she began to unlock the door using the master key that she held as the manager.

Hearing this, Greg jumped up, ran down the hall and braced himself against the door.

“Please, Mrs. Purchuk. Don’t try to come in. I’m not feeling too good just now. A little under the weather. I’d rather not to see anyone. Please, please go away!”

Mrs. Purchuck stopped and withdrew her key from the lock. She made a few discreet inquiries. Was it the flu? Did he have a temperature? She went on to say that someone from Greg’s work had called and asked her to check on him. Was he really sure that he’d be all right?

After Mrs. Purchuck left, he attempted to wedge some chairs and a table against the door so that it couldn’t be opened easily. But his efforts did not appear to have created much of an obstacle.

•

The next day, Greg awoke to the low buzz of the television. He blinked a few times, and then sat up. His mind was blank. Gradually, though, the one constant, seeping in from the outside world, insinuated its way into his awareness — he could not escape the bitter-musty odor that emanated from his neighbors.

More slowly, he became aware that he was feeling a touch of hunger. Perhaps the feeling would grow worse? Could he summon the courage to go out again? But even if he succeeded in making a purchase and bringing it back to his condo, wouldn’t he eventually run out of money? What then? For a few moments his mind was animated, but then he sank back into the gray torpor that had become his accustomed state: not peace, not acceptance, simply nothing.

Suddenly, someone was banging on the door. People were shouting. It took Greg a moment to understand.

“OPEN UP! THIS IS THE POLICE!”

Terror swept through Greg’s body. He was paralyzed by a storm of conflicting impulses. But then a calm passed over him. So this was it. This was the end. He got up and began to make his way to the door.

Meanwhile, the knocking and yelling had grown louder. Greg had gotten as far as the hallway when he heard someone shout, “Stand back!” He could see that the door was already unlocked and partially opened, but was being obstructed by the pile of furniture he had placed in the hall.

There was a bang, and the door burst wide open, knocking over the table and chairs. Above the jumble of broken furniture, framed by the doorway, two insect policemen stood, their dark blue uniforms split here and there by their hard, ungainly bodies.

With some difficulty, one of the policemen was using his extra appendages to wave a large black revolver. The other insect-policeman was arguing with his partner, telling him the gun was unnecessary and that it should be put away.

Because of their clothing, Greg was sure that he recognized both Miss Mondragon and Mrs. Purchuk peering from behind the policemen. Mrs. Purchuk’s loose housedress still fit fairly well, but the seams of Miss Mondragon’s business suit were coming apart. Further behind, crowding in the hallway, were his neighbors. The confusion of loud voices, the frantic bobbing of insect heads and the frenzied waving of so many antennae and palpi had the effect of making his head spin.

He steadied himself, accepting that whatever might happen next, must happen. And so he started to clear away the table and chairs on his side. But this was unnecessary. With her new insect strength and agility, Miss Mondragon suddenly and nimbly darted between the arguing policemen. She scrambled across the pile of furniture and came up to where Greg was standing.

“Greg!” she started to scold furiously, her voice charged with anger and concern. But then she stopped. Miss Mondragon raised herself up from her horizontal posture. Her segmented body leaned forward and her foremost appendages came to rest on Greg’s chest. Her enormous insect head was at a level with his, so close that he could feel her palps and antennae brushing his face.

“You’re... not... Greg...”

A pause...

“Who are you?”

That was said with some urgency...

“WHAT ARE YOU!!?”

And that was said with unmistakable fear and anger...

Suddenly, Miss Mondragon raised herself up so that she was taller than Greg. She looked down at him, her sickle-like mandibles spread wide. She screamed...

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH GREG!!?”

He stood, quivering — what was there to say?

Now Greg felt Miss Mondragon seize him with her giant mandibles. Even in this crisis, he wondered at her strength. The razor tips of her jaws penetrated his skin. He felt himself being lifted off the floor and carried back over the pile of furniture.

Paradoxically, he experienced a shimmer of euphoria. What was happening, he suddenly perceived, was all for the best. He had moved beyond resignation and acceptance. His eyes closed, and in a swell of pain, he saw his fate.

Like a movie playing on the nether side of his closed eyelids, Greg imagined himself being carried into the hall, then set upon by Miss Mondragon, Mrs. Purchuk, the police, and all the neighbors. They surrounded and covered him in a tight scrum so that he was lost from sight. When the scrum broke apart, each insect carried in its jaws, like a trophy, some piece of Greg’s body — an arm, a leg, a foot, a bloody slab of torso. The line of insects then marched, single file, down the hallway, down the stairs, through the office door, and into Mrs. Purchuk’s apartment. Once inside, they passed straight down the short hall and into the children’s room. One by one, they came to the infant’s crib within which lay a seething mass of headless larvae. The larvae reared upwards, their gaping mouths ringed with hooked teeth. One by one, each adult insect dropped its booty into the nest of ravenous grubs. Last in the line was Miss Mondragon. Pinioned between her jaws, the tips penetrating the temples, she held Greg’s head. His unseeing eyes were facing forward and opened wide.

That was the vision that flashed through Greg’s mind as Miss. Mondragon carried him into the hallway outside of his condominium. When the vision had passed and he opened his eyes again, the first things he saw were his own forearms and hands. It took a moment before he recognized that, instead, something he had not foreseen, something utterly unexpected, was happening.

Perhaps it was a reaction to a venom Miss Mondragon had injected through her jaws when she seized him. Perhaps it was simply a delay that unaccountably affected him only. The ultimate cause was of no importance. What mattered was this: Greg saw that he, too, was finally undergoing the transformation that had changed everyone else. His skin had become a rigid shell, metallic, sculptured, and sparsely set with stiff bristles. His joints were articulated like a beautiful and mysterious robotic mechanism.

And the odors that had tormented him? What had been a stench was now sweet and rich and manifold — a language as exact as mathematics and as expressive as song. With the sensilla scattered over the surfaces of his quivering antennae, Greg detected and reveled in the delightful and peculiar aromas of every individual in the hallway. There was Miss Mondragon, delicate as a spring rose and as sharp as a winter thorn. There was Mrs. Purchuk, stolid and bland as soap in a laundry — and the two policemen, slightly stale and bitter like coffee too long in the pot. Together with the effusions from his neighbors, crowded in the hallway, it all blended into a revelation, a glorious new dispensation of odor and scent.

In an instant, the mad rapture that had paralyzed Greg was gone. Instead of the horrific dream that had assailed him, he now envisioned himself fully reunited with the human community, joyously partaking of the common delights and the common sensibilities — at one, once again, with his fellow man. He was about to burst. It was a moment of release and exaltation.

But first he must bring a halt to the frenzy that was driving the mob around him. With a sudden presence of mind, he shouted as loudly as he could.

“IN THE NAME OF GOD, STOP!!”

Greg’s voice shocked Miss Mondragon into stasis. He repeated his command, infusing it with as much indignation and anger as he could manage. At once, the screaming neighbors fell silent.

Miss Mondragon dropped Greg where she stood. As he landed adroitly on the hallway carpet, he felt a fantastic surge of muscular power and grace rushing through his torso and limbs. Turning back to the group, he raised himself up to his full height, displaying his transfigured body.

“Ohhh...” Miss Mondragon sputtered, caught short, “Oh God, Greg, I, I really don’t know what came over me... I’m...” it was Miss Mondragon’s turn to stammer, “I... I... I’m really sorry. I was sure... this is really too strange... Greg... please forgive me for reacting this way, it’s just I was certain... we all were...” There was a confused murmur in the background. The two policemen had stopped their arguing and were staring.

Greg blurted out, pressing his advantage, “I’m going to talk to my lawyer about this! My God! A man’s a little under the weather, and a mob comes to break into his apartment! Did you have a warrant?!” The police looked back sheepishly.

“Greg, this is a terrible misunderstanding.” Mrs. Purchuk was talking frantically, trying to explain. He cut her off...

“This is outrageous! How am I supposed to get well with people breaking down my door!?”

He could tell, though, that his tormentors were sufficiently abashed. It wouldn’t do to push things too far. With a more conciliatory tone of voice he continued...

“I’d like to put this unfortunate incident behind us as soon as possible. Now if you’d leave me alone so I can get back to my rest, I just might be willing to let it go at that...”

Stunned by this turn of affairs, everyone mumbled his or her assent. As Mrs. Purchuk led Miss. Mondragon away, Miss Mondragon tried to turn back to repeat her apologies, but Mrs. Purchuk firmly ushered her down the hall. Greg brushed himself off, and, with a secret joy, watched them disappear down the stairs. When the last of the neighbors had cleared the hallway, Greg, in relief, shut and locked his door.

•

And so Greg was left, back braced against the door, staring into the growing shadows.

His transformed vision was blurred, and yet, somehow, this soothed him.

Eased, safe, he was free, finally, to scuttle across the floor to the dark place beneath his bed. There, curled into a ball, he might sleep away his fatigue and dread.

But the madness would not leave. His anxiety returned, deepened. In the darkening room a thousand tiny fears emerged and swarmed. He had once heard the story of a butterfly that dreamt it was a man. Or was it a man who dreamt that he was a butterfly? Was he a madman? Or, was his final metamorphosis the delusion? Perhaps it was the nightmare vision of himself, dismembered and fed piecemeal to Mrs. Purchuk’s children, that was imminent and real, and it was his last minute salvation that was the phantasm — the dilation of time, the seeming redemption, born of that fugue-like state men are reputed to enter when in extremis — in other words, an illusion, a fiction, the ineffectual magic of a story?

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