“Another one,” he mumbled into the hood of his Level A,  full-encapsulation hazmat suit. He listened to the hum of his cooling vest, heard his own breath like a hiss in his head. He retrieved several more cards, and released them likewise into individual, air-tight packets. His ear-bud crackled as Lt. Fuentes checked on his status. “Everything’s fine and dandy,” he answered into the voice-activated radio attached to the collar of his Tyvek undersuit.

He struggled to stay comfortable squatting on his knees. His mind began to drift. He found it hard to focus through the magnifying lens in his viewport; there was glare from the work lamp he’d secured overhead. “Get Well Soon,” he read aloud as he retrieved a pink and lavender square decorated with gold butterflies. He wondered how many cards were left, balanced on their open edges in neat rows like tiny tombstones. He paused to shift his body so he could see how his comrades were progressing throughout the misty space that was filled with spidery shadows cast by multiple, portable lights. After a moment he smiled, as it seemed they were just as slow, and just as unhappy, as he was.

He watched his neighbor for a moment–in an identical orange suit, on hands and knees–then turned away, amused. Dawoud, do you have to inspect each bottle? But he was jealous, too. That collection of liquor was at least interesting. He lifted another greeting card that read, “Happy Anniversary” and deposited it. “This is one weird-ass situation,” he said out loud, and winced, because he realized he’d just broadcast that to the entire team.

“Ballyntine! Shut it!” came Lt. Fuentes’ immediate, sharp response. “This is ‘secure and retrieve’ and does not require commentary from you.”

He exhaled slowly, so it wouldn’t sound like a sigh, and continued removing cards from the top of a minuscule credenza; it was a lifetime’s worth, each with a different message and each no more than a half-inch high. Their mission specialist, Thompson, had explained, the contents of the exclusion zone were on a scale of one foot to one inch; the cards had originally been six-inches.

“Lt. Fuentes,” a voice buzzed over their network. It sounded like PFC Davis, who knelt three feet away, facing Ballyntine. He’d already deconstructed the bathroom tile walls and now was in the process of disassembling and packing the fixtures. “Does anyone have any idea what happened here?” Davis continued. “This is a perfectly normal Kohler toilet–I can see the brand name–and all the plumbing is standard and intact, but it’s … like, you know … the seat is like 1.2 inches wide and the whole thing is only 2.5 inches high. Couldn’t this have been fabricated, and those two old coots created some kind of scam?”

There was silence, and everyone stopped what they were doing. Because this was what all of them were thinking. PFC Ballyntine kept the three-inch high sofa-table with the cabriole legs hanging from a sterile clamp as he maneuvered around so he could see the back of Fuentes’ suit in the murk behind him.

After a minute, Fuentes said, “We follow orders and we do our jobs. I told you everything the briefing team from Homeland Security told me. Family members reported finding their elderly parents dead in their house–this house–a suburban, three-bedroom, frame and brick rancher built in 1958. Everything on the outside looked normal. Upon entering the home, investigators discovered the tiny corpses of a man and woman in their late eighties, desiccated and almost mummified as if they’d been dead for decades instead of days, curled up in the middle of their living room floor on top of an eight- by ten-inch oriental rug. And everything else around them … every goddamned thing including the interior walls, was miniaturized. No sign of a struggle. Nothing out of place except the electricity was dead. A doll house inside a regular house.” He waited a moment then added, “Now get back to work.”

Ballyntine sighed audibly this time, and returned to his task. He dropped the table into another plastic pouch and sealed it, moved it to his specimen case. A little shiver went up his spine as he thought about what Fuentes had just said. “Tiny corpses,” he whispered as he used the tweezers again to remove inch-high pictures from the ten-inch high walls. He suddenly wanted to get out of there.

The housekeeper shows me to the morning room. This is my domain, it has French windows looking out onto the long lawn and I am expected to write my letters and invitations here, acceptances and refusals. I think the majority may be refusals, my new husband is not particularly sociable, indeed, it is a surprise I met him at all.

The staff have been courteous to me and as welcoming as they care to show. The housekeeper has been kind, showing me where and how to do things, explaining the running of the household to me. I should stamp my authority on the household in the next few days but, really, I just want this capable woman, who is only a little older than me, to organise my house and my marriage for me in her cool, measured way.

Once she has shown me the stationery and we have gone over the day’s menu – hardly an arduous task when there is only me to feed and I have lost my appetite – she leaves me alone. When she is gone I hardly know what to do. Without knowing it, I had been dreading being left alone. Too much time to think.

I will occupy myself by exploring my husband’s home. I have seen all of the downstairs reception rooms of course – they are all much of a muchness, high ceilings and long windows. Upstairs, my husband’s bedroom is sparser than I would expect. No books, no ornaments or momentoes from his travels. Nothing to suggest character or interests at all. His study simply holds a small library of books, a neat desk with a blotter and the drawers are all unlocked and empty.

But there is a door in the corner of the study, which must lead somewhere. So here it is, Bluebeard’s secret room. To my surprise it is unlocked. When I step inside, I find a small room lined with glass cabinets. And in those cabinets, pegged out neatly with meticulous care, are hordes of gloriously coloured insects – butterflies, beetles and dragonflies, all captured and pinned onto baize.

I could gaze at them for hours. Beautiful, extraordinary things. It is peculiar to think they were all alive, fluttering and scurrying, before my husband caught them. What kind of man keeps this sort of collection? I can only hope he has not collected me.

That was when it all changed. The voices kept speaking, but instead of insults and the occasional veiled threat, the words they spoke formed warnings. The sun god was watching me, they said, watching my work, and he was not happy. He was convinced that I was about to reveal his secrets in my artwork, secrets that he had worked hard to conceal, and they warned me what could happen if he became angry. They warned me how bad it could be, not just for me, but for everyone. Everyone on earth.

I’ve been looking out of my window at noon every day for the last few days. I pull back the curtains and glance up at the sun. And every time I do, it seems a little darker.

Charlie winced slightly, and bent to retrieve his fifty-five page paper on Carl Jung. “That’s so helpful, Alison.”

“I’m sorry, but he just makes me mad.” She flopped back on the bed, her hands laced behind her head.

He puckered his lips as he surveyed her, stretched out in front of him, a slip of her belly exposed. “Okay,” he said. He hefted the black binder absently. “Uh, want to make out?”

She flung herself into a sitting position. “Geezus crap, Charlie. Not even going to ask me why I’m so angry?”

“Huh?” he said, honestly not understanding what she meant. “I got the information off the Internet, and you know, changed the wording enough so that it’s my….”

“Look,…” she said, bouncing to her feet. “He had a few original thoughts, but he was mostly a self-centered prick who used women to further his own ends. He could turn anything a woman said or did into some kind of pathology, or an example that proved his theories.”

“I thought his stuff about Miss Miller and the Moth was okay….” He winced again, as he saw the expression on her face.

“Really!? Really?!! Are you fucking kidding me?” She paced in a circle, pulling the corners of her sweater in two directions. “You read ‘The Moth to the Sun’? You read his ridiculous analysis of a perfectly good poem? Miss Miller wasn’t any more psychotic than Jung was — he had hallucinations you know. He was the psycho. But a man could get away with it.”

“Uh, I dunno, Ali. He’s considered a genius. Professor Aldritch assigned him as one of our ‘Pioneers of Psychology.’” He watched her for a moment.  ”Come on, babe, what’s up with this pissy attitude?”

She came to a stop inches from his face, and looked up into his eyes, her straight, dark hair dangling like a curtain behind her. “You are trying to make this personal, ‘babe.’ Stop it. We were talking about Jung, not me.”

“Okay,” he said, happy to breathe the perfume of her shampoo, the smell of her skin.

She pointed her index finger so that it touched the tip of his nose. “Stop it, Charlie. I mean it. Right now.”

“Fine, fine.” He pushed the binder at her breasts. “You’re going to tell me anyway.”

“Getting personal again,” she murmured as she flipped through the word-processed pages. “Here, here where you praise Jung’s analysis of ‘The Moth to the Sun.’ You’ve got to be kidding me. You don’t call bullshit? Scylla and Charybdis, long quotes from Faust and then he’s off on God and Christ and the Devil. And the libido. Of course, the libido. Miss Miller’s little poem has to have something to do with her libido, and her natural hysteria. Oh, and then we get miles and miles of Virgil, in Latin. Has to be in Latin ’cause it makes him look so smart. Look….” She held the binder open facing him, holding the flaps like wings, then lowered it in front of her again. “Why did you quote this?… ‘It is a common error for one to judge the longing according to the quality of the object.’” She didn’t wait for an answer, but continued, “Jung is so hung up on Miss Miller’s crushes. She has a life, he doesn’t. The jerk. He rambles about Jesus and St. Francis, and rips something in ancient Greek. And then the philosophers … gotta quote them. Oh bestill my beating heart, it’s Nietzsche! How could we escape a massive essay that eviscerates a little poem by a woman Jung couldn’t bang without a visit from Nietzsche. This tract is nothing but an act of masturbation. It means exactly nothing. Either Jung is a complete idiot, or he’s a dick, like I said.”  She slammed the binder closed with a pop and raised her head, jaws clenched.

Charlie didn’t give a rat’s ass about Jung. It was just an assignment for Psych 302.  But he had to be careful. Alison was fired up. “Uh, sure,” he said. “Now that you point it out, I guess you’re right.”

“You guess?” She threw the binder on the dorm-room floor and strode over to him. “You guess?” she asked again, pressing against him and circling his neck with her arms. “You know I’m right. Say it,” she whispered, her voice husky.

“You’re right, Alison,” he said, lowering his lips to that special place just under her left ear lobe.

She sighed and nestled against his chest. “Sometimes it is hard to tell the who is the moth and who is the sun. It’s very complex,” she mumbled into his shirt.

“Mmm hmmm,” he said, as his hands found their way into her pants.

Very amicable until ants realized they were in an enclosed environment and carried out an alarmingly efficient military maneuver; first surrounding the butterfly, then simultaneously swarming over it from all sides, creating a flapping, butterfly-shaped wall of ants. Though obviously distressing to the butterfly this seemed to cause no immediate harm, that is until the ants began alighting from the butterfly, single file, each carrying a small section of said butterfly in their jaws. Eventually no butterfly left, just a collection of disseminated butterfly parts, like a house taken apart brick by brick. New butterfly needed.

Butterfly Vs Preying Mantis

Butterfly yet again on losing side, though a much quicker and cleaner death. Preying Mantis struck almost immediately, gripping butterfly between its front legs and swallowing it whole, including wings. Mantis then proceeded to knock on jar cap to be set free. New butterfly needed.

Butterfly Vs Ladybird

Dead heat, if by ‘dead heat,’ you mean both insects dead from heat exposure and lack of oxygen. Neither insect attempted to bother the other. Got bored, left to get a sandwich, both insects dead on return. Not complete waste; dead yet complete butterfly pressed and added to scrap book.

Woke up in cold sweat. Dreamt being eaten alive by ants; ants crawling out of all orifices. Mantis bit off my head. Immediately destroyed jar and scrapbook.

Nb. No insects were harmed in the writing of this story