As Thaddeus Muir awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found
himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.
	"I'm too busy for this," said Luna.
	"Not again!" said Heinrich, who lived upstairs.


	With careful attention to nutrition they nursed Thad mostly back to
health. Heinrich, possessed of a nearly-relevant degree in biology, gave
Luna a heavy broom to bang on the ceiling during bug-reversion emergencies.
Thad slept 14 hours a day. Luna cultivated her friendship with the lady at
the fusion restaurant across the way; their oddly-tangy kitchen scraps
seemed to center Thad when he started to lose his human faculties again.


	When he seemed ready, Thad was asked to rejoin Luna for regular
Scrabble games.
	"Is this a test?" he wanted to know.
	Luna tsk-tsked at him. "I was losing my edge." But then when he
missed the hook for T on the beginning of ROUGH, she made him drink an
extra glass of carrot juice. Vitamin A had been crucial in inhibiting
chitin formation.


	Their flat, east of downtown London, had poor insulation. It never
used to bother Thad.


	"How do you feel about it?" Heinrich asked over protein shakes; "Do
you wish to pursue a romantic relationship with her?"
	Thad waved him off.
	"I'm serious. You're breaking her heart day by day with this
Platonic 'roommates' system."
	"I'm not interested in her. And she has no time for me," Thad
shrugged.
	"Which is it, that you're not interested or that she has no time?"


	Thad acquired pets of all kinds: budgies, guinea pigs, fish, a
chameleon; no bugs. "I hardly know whether to worry about this or not,"
Heinrich said from the depths of a Russian fur hat.
	"You've been keeping me cooped up. I need a hobby," explained Thad.
"Are you going somewhere in that?"
	"The bastard landlord says we use too much heat."


	Luna decided the bed itself was preventing Thad's permanent
purgation of insectile tendencies: a viral agent, maybe, or merely a
psychological trigger. The three of them pitched it off the back porch. Its
legs buckled with a wet crunch.
	Ruefully, Thad mentioned the superior strength of an exoskeleton as
compared to bone. Heinrich drummed his fingers on the rail into a morning
air otherwise awkwardly silent. "Anyone for quinoa pancakes at Nebula?"
Thad asked brightly.
	As they crossed the street to get breakfast, Big Ben was tolling
eleven. The chill stung Thad's cheeks. He looked at the people rushing past
on the pavement; not quite like a colony of ants, he thought. He couldn't
put his finger on what it reminded him of.
	Then he thought, NEBULA is six tiles. NEBULA plus a blank: NEBULAE,
NEBULAS... ALBUMEN. TUNABLE, if that was a word. He was back in it. He knew
who he was.


written for Ben L, known as Mr. Idanga, while standing up 11/20/02

I wrote the first 17 words and then stared at the page for a while, trying to decide what Thaddeus was turning into. (I had thought it might be something either heavy or bouncy enough to break the bed.) Finally, the solution, such as it was, hit me. Muir, by the way, is the last name of the translator whose version of The Metamorphosis's first sentence I stole.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out; it doesn't seem crowded to me, nor does the flow of time feel unclear. I mean, I wrote it, so I should always second-guess myself when I think something's unambiguous, but I've written stories I *know* one couldn't tell what was happening in.

There's one non-standard colon I hesitated over, and likewise an iffy semi-colon. I also got too excited about the noble hyphen's capabilities in that second section.

The main point that needs streamlining -- well, I wouldn't want to beat anyone over the head with anything, but I was thinking of the aversion to cold as symbolic of his reversion, and Scrabble as symbolic of humanity. I don't actually know how insects feel about the cold, though; I also don't know how they feel about Vitamin A nor, oh man, whether Big Ben actually tolls the hours.

On that topic, the phrasing "Anyone for [whatever]?" strikes me as something that might be an American peculiarity, though I really have no idea. Also, there must be a native way to say "east of downtown London" though, I don't know, maybe not one that indicates 'London' to the uninitiated. I think the Aldgate East tube station is around where I'm thinking of but that would be meaningless to people who've spent even less time there than I have. I had the same problem with the Scrabble lines... I used to really like throwing around backgammon jargon in stories despite being a novice myself; with Scrabble, though, I sort of know what I'm doing, and I found myself shying away from the more opaque phrasings I would actually use with other players. (I checked, by the way, and T is the only letter you can hook before ROUGH. The rack at the end has three more bingos in it, all of which fell into the category of things I might have found on my own but wouldn't have been sure were good.)

The few times I reminded myself to mix in some short sentences, it went well. I ought to keep doing that.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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