Extend the Story - Add a Room

Have you ever tried to not think of food when your stomach is grumbling?

Craig felt exhausted after making a flight along the length of the upstairs hallway. “I need food,” the tiny transformed teenager realized.

If he could find food, eat it, and restore his energy, Craig felt optimistic, perhaps without any sound basis, that he could figure a way out of the mess of his own making.

He mustered what energy he could for a flight downstairs to the kitchen. He marveled at a light fixture hanging from the ceiling that reminded him of a suspended space station from a sci-fi television show. Furniture like chairs and couches looked like monumental buildings.

He knew his brother had come this way. Would he find Caleb in the kitchen? The thought unnerved him, but he didn’t see any alternative until his faceted eyes focused on a building-sized bowl of fruit on the living room coffee table.

“Bingo!” Craig buzzed and swept in a wide circle to make a detour in his flight to reach the plateau-like coffee table.

The tube-like proboscis beneath his face practically drooled as he landed on the curve red surface of an apple. The large fruit felt weird beneath his feet, but Craig blamed the strangeness on his tiny size. He extended his proboscis to suck up some juice from the apple’s peel, but he felt the unappetizing taste of wax.

“No!” Craig cried in disappointment. The fruit — an apple, a huge yellow banana, a pear, and some grapes — they were artificial. His mother had placed them in the bowl to brighten the room, not to provide snacks for her sons or guests.

The little fly gazed across the room toward the entrance to the kitchen. He felt so weary and the door looked so distant. “I don’t think I can make it,” he said, defeated before he even began.

At that very moment, the huge form of his younger brother emerged from the kitchen carrying a bowl in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. Craig’s wings buzzed in alarm as the giant crossed the room quickly and lowered the bowl and bag to the tabletop without ever noticing a tiny fly perched atop a wax apple.

“I’ve got to try,” Craig said as he took flight. Before he got near his brother, Caleb turned and made his way back toward the kitchen.

The fly, in the meantime, hovered over a bowl of onion dip that looked as big as a lake.

“That looks so damn good!” Craig exclaimed.

His wings carried him to the rim of the enormous bowl. He perched on the edge with his six tiny limbs hooked onto the bowl as he gazed at the lake of dip.

The savory dip was so close, but how could he get to it?

He was still trying to think of a plan when Caleb returned with a can of soda in his hand. The huge kid dropped onto the sofa and reached for the bag of chips. Craig listened in fear as he heard a loud “Ripp!” as his kid brother tore open the bag.

Too unnerved at finding him so close to his enormous brother, Craig twitched his wings and sprang into flight. As he flew out over the lake of dip, it was like someone turned off a switch. His wings began to sputter, causing his flight to grow erratic.

“No! No!” Craig screamed as his failing flight caused his puny insect form to plunge into the dip with a barely discernible “plop!”

Caleb, not having witnessed anything out of the ordinary, pulled a large chip from the bag and lowered it toward the dip.

In the meantime, the stranded fly wiggled and squirmed but discovered the thick, sticky glop held him fast.

“No!” Craig squealed in real terror. “See me! Please, see me!”

Caleb scoops his brother onto the chip