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By --

It was the kind of day where the sun didn’t merely shine, it pressed down on everything. Bold light relentlessly spilled across every surface, bleaching the grey pavement pale and overheating the metal benches, making them too hot to sit down. The haze flickered above the ground, bending the outlines of distant things. It curled upward from the asphalt in invisible ribbons and warped the edges of things. The street signs were bent and twisted and parked cars wavered like illusions. What was solid in the morning now seemed soft and unreal, as though the world were melting at the edges. The heat steadily rose and fell with the hum of cicadas and trilling notes of birds. Meanwhile, the tree leaves were silent; their usual rustling replaced by a still, heavy hush. The sky above was an unbroken sheet of blue—no softness, no cloud, just a solid wall of brightness that hummed with heat. Everything was exposed. Every crack in the pavement, every speck of dust in the breeze, every flaw in the landscape stood out in high definition. Shadows shrank into razor-thin slits beneath trees, as if they were also afraid of exposure. It was the kind of weather that made your skin feel too thin, that made secrets impossible, that made the world feel watched. Nothing could hide, not even the smallest insect. But the heat was hypnotic, dulling the mind and making the world feel far away, dreamlike. You could stare into it for hours, and nothing would come into focus. It was as if the sky had laid a transparent veil of heat over the world – just enough to distort the reality that its light had harshly exposed. Here, beneath a large gingko tree, an old man sat in quiet stillness, as though time had slowed just for him. He had sat beneath the slow shade of a gnarled tree, where the sunlight barely filtered through the leaves, fanning out into a lacy pattern of shadow and sunlight across the old man’s knees. He was dressed lightly, chosen clothes not for style or trend, but for their ability to coexist with the heat. His shirt was made of linen, pale cream in color, almost the shade of dry sand. The material, loosely woven, allowed the air to pass through, though not nearly enough for a day like this. It hung from his thin shoulders like a second skin; it was damp in patches where sweat had soaked through—at the chest, the lower back, beneath the arms. The collar was unbuttoned and open, framing the deep folds of his neck, tanned and furrowed from years beneath the sun. Rolled sleeves stopped neatly below the elbows, exposing forearms that bore the kind of texture only age and sunlight could create: firm in some places, papery in others, the skin stretching gently over bone and vein. The shirt’s buttons didn’t match—one was a dull ivory, another a clear plastic, two others matte and gray. Whether the result of habit, necessity, or simple indifference, they created a quiet asymmetry that somehow suited him. His trousers were made of soft cotton, light beige with a fine vertical texture that caught the dappled light as it filtered through the leaves above. The legs of the pants were gently creased, not from ironing, but from the way they fell over his frame as he sat. They folded naturally at the knee and pooled a little over his ankles. A narrow brown belt, scuffed near the buckle, cinched the trousers at the waist. He wore it not tightly and allowed space for his linen shirt to breathe when he moved to shift a knee or to readjust his grip on the cane that stood upright beside him. The old man’s shoulders slumped forward as if even the weight of the heat had settled onto his back. His faded cap shielded his brow from the sun’s glare, though it couldn’t shield him from his time. His hands, knotted and sunspotted, rested quietly on his lap and on his cane, fingers twitching now and then as if remembering work they no longer needed to do. The heavy air didn’t move, not even with a breeze, and the only sound was the soft hum of insects and the occasional twit of the birds overhead. He blinked slowly, the heat making everything feel slower, thicker, heavier. But he didn’t seem to mind. He just watched—the dust in the sunlight, the ants at his feet, the shimmer of heat rising from the road, waiting for the heat to pass, or perhaps not waiting at all. It was as if he had seen summers like this too many times to be bothered by one more. He shifted slightly, the wooden bench creaking beneath his weight. As he raised a hand to scratch his forearm, something moved. A small, dark insect crept slowly along the pale skin of his arm, its legs brushing lightly over age spots and fine white hairs. It crawled slowly across the thin skin stretched over his bones. He watched it without flinching. It wasn’t an actual bug. It wasn’t a floater either—its grotesque detail, with tiny wiry hairs sprouting from its back and legs, had nothing in common with the simple specks or drifting shadows that dance across the eye. Nor was it a hallucination brought on by heat. The old man had seen these kinds of things before—silent, crawling creatures that no one else ever seemed to notice. He had been seeing them since he was young. Some had names: lust, greed, sloth. Others were harder to place, just shadows that clung and wandered. Everywhere the old man looked, someone was carrying them. He could see the bugs on a young couple a few yards away. They were sitting beneath a light shade, knees touching, bodies angled inward in that eager, almost in a fragile way. The woman wore a floral sundress and twisted a strand of hair around her finger as she spoke, smiling with every other word. The man beside her wore a pale blue button-down, sleeves rolled neatly to the elbows, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. He nodded along, attentive and smiling—charming, practiced, just enough. To anyone else, they would have looked like a beautiful young couple, all warmth and effortless connection. But through the old man's eyes, the illusion frayed. Ten glossy fat bugs clung to the woman’s collarbone, twitching faintly with each breath, while twenty thin bugs nestled just beneath the man’s jawline, pulsing every time she looked away. Then came the jogger. He thundered past on the path, shirt plastered to his back, breath loud and steady, a metronome of control. His arms pumped like pistons, his pace clean and measured. The jogger looked like a personification of ‘health.’ But the bugs were everywhere. A whole trail of them clung to him like medals: some tucked behind his knees, others bouncing against his ankles like iron shackles. One particularly large one crawled along the line of his spine, thick-legged and gleaming with sweat, its head tucked down as if burrowing deeper with every stride. “Sss… sss…” Another ‘imaginary bug’, crawled his arms giving him goosebumps. Judgment, maybe. He narrowed his eyes to examine his “imaginary” bug. Or the quieter one – his new habit of condemnation dressed up as wisdom. They had lived on him for years, though sometimes they moved so slowly he forgot they were there at all. He didn’t sweep them away. What would be the point? When you see other people’s bugs so clearly—coiled behind ears, flickering along jawlines, weaving through smiles—you grow oddly comfortable with your own. Familiarity breeds tolerance, even for the grotesque. Besides, what could he really do? When the insects on others were so plain to see—clinging to their collars, nesting in their words—how could he not judge them? It wasn’t malice. He justified himself. It was a reflex. Like flinching at a stench, or narrowing your eyes against too much light. So the judgment and condemnation stayed, coiled on his arm like a pet he never asked for. Although familiar, it was still revolting. There was something about the bug’s appearance that unsettled him in a deeply physical way. Its body was squat and uneven, the color of coal soaked in oil, with a matte finish that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Across its back, patchy segments lifted slightly with each breath, revealing glimpses of a softer, pulpy underlayer—moist, almost raw-looking. Fine, wiry hairs bristled from its joints, curling like burnt thread, and its legs, spindly and too long for its body, moved with a slow, crawling confidence. Its head—if it could be called that—was tucked low, eyeless, with feelers that twitched constantly, as if sensing not just the air, but the thoughts of the skin it walked on. The old man had thousands of them. Not just one kind—dozens. Maybe more. Some were small and thin, barely visible, like black threads unraveling under his skin. Others were swollen and heavy, bloated with years of unspoken thoughts. A few had red dots scattered across their backs like infected blisters. If you look at it closer, the tiny red dots were irregular and glistening, like the residue of something organic, something half-digested. Some of the dots pulsed faintly, as if the thing itself were still in the process of becoming, still festering. The old man narrowed his eyes. Yes, he recognized those. A certain kind of bug wore those marks—bugs that fed on smugness, on the subtle joy of moral superiority. He had a few of those himself. Maybe more than a few. He could feel one now, sitting just behind his collarbone, still and warm, the red spots pressing faintly against his skin like a reminder of every time he had thought, at least I’m not like them. The old man hated those imaginary bugs. He despised them. And when he saw the bugs on children, even on his own grandsons, silently feeding on their lives, he just wanted to burn them all. Burn all the bugs that sucked the lives out of people and himself. The old man closed his eyes, trying to breathe past the rage. Just for a moment, he let himself drift. When he opened them again, a young man had taken the seat across from him. The young man was dressed in a tailored black suit, collar sharp, shoes bright, hair slicked back with all sorts of precision. He also sat with perfect posture, legs crossed neatly, a white paper coffee cup resting elegantly in his hand. His other hand scrolled through his phone in slow, practiced swipes. The young business man drank the coffee now and then, feeling the subtle wake it gave him. The young man’s eyes remained fixed on his phone, and the screen’s glow reflected faintly in his pupils. The young man didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. His facial expression was smooth as porcelain with his gaze fixated on the screen. The world was talking to him, whispering through pixels and notifications. The old man blinked. For a fleeting second, he thought he saw himself. Not the version he'd become, worn thin with time, but the version he'd once been—hungry, polished, full of the illusion that life could be conquered with the right look and the right posture. And, full of bugs. The old man in his youth didn’t see the bugs for what they were. But they had been there. They had been there. Clinging quietly to his skin, burrowing into his habits, wrapping around his pride. The bugs were still on him — nothing about the “imaginary” bugs had changed for the old man except for the old man’s hatred against them. Same as the old man, the whole bug situation would be less likely to change for the young man across the table. And, maybe one day, much later, the young man would come to see and to despise them just as fiercely, and realize the hopeless truth that there is nothing he can do about it. But not yet, and not today. The old man watched the young man in silence. He looked at him to judge him, but he also looked at him to wait for something to happen. Because something always happened. A moment later, the young man paused, thumb hovering mid-scroll. Something had tickled his arm. Absentmindedly, he glanced down—and then his eyes widened. It wasn’t one of his “imaginary” bugs.The shape, the way it moved, even the texture of its shell—everything was different. It was a real bug. Small and hard-backed, with long antennae and precise, deliberate legs. It must have fallen from a tree, carried by the wind. It climbed the young man steadily—over his wrist, along the cuff of his shirt, up toward the elbow—as if he was a tree. With his eyes widened sharply and his disgusted expression, \the young business man jumped to his feet. The coffee slipped from his hand and spilled down his trousers. He flailed his arm in panic, trying to shake it off. The real bug, because of the force, tumbled to the floor. And, when the real bug was thrown on the ground, the young man stomped on it. Once. Twice. Three times. The tiny creature was crushed beneath his shoe, reduced to a smear with no shape. But the bugs that had always been on him—the ones only the old man could see—didn’t disappear or shrink from fear. If anything, they were more animated. They darted across his contorted face, scrambled along his ears, neck, fingertips, between the folds of his shirt. After the shock of the real bug had passed away, the young man began to smooth himself down. Brushed at the coffee stain, checked his watch, scanned the room to see if anyone had noticed. Then, he left. The floor was marked with a splatter of coffee and the faint remains of the insect. And, across the young man’s back, the bugs—his bugs—moved again, slowly, familiarly, beneath the sunlight. The old man scoffed. It didn’t show on his face, but the bugs told him everything. Judgement, Pride, Derision, and many more danced on the old man. Then something tickled the old man’s forearm. The old man looked down. It was a real bug. It had landed on him silently, and probably the same kind. It crawled just above the liver spots, its tiny legs brushing against skin that had seen too many summers. He startled—flinched like a boy—and shook it off. The insect hit the bench, twitching, and the old man crushed it under his palm, disgusted. And just like the young man, he looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

Story Content

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You could stare into it for hours, and nothing would come into focus. It was as if the sky had laid a transparent veil of heat over the world – just enough to distort the reality that its light had harshly exposed. Here, beneath a large gingko tree, an old man sat in quiet stillness, as though time had slowed just for him. He had sat beneath the slow shade of a gnarled tree, where the sunlight barely filtered through the leaves, fanning out into a lacy pattern of shadow and sunlight across the old man’s knees. He was dressed lightly, chosen clothes not for style or trend, but for their ability to coexist with the heat. His shirt was made of linen, pale cream in color, almost the shade of dry sand. The material, loosely woven, allowed the air to pass through, though not nearly enough for a day like this. It hung from his thin shoulders like a second skin; it was damp in patches where sweat had soaked through—at the chest, the lower back, beneath the arms. The collar was unbuttoned and open, framing the deep folds of his neck, tanned and furrowed from years beneath the sun. Rolled sleeves stopped neatly below the elbows, exposing forearms that bore the kind of texture only age and sunlight could create: firm in some places, papery in others, the skin stretching gently over bone and vein.

The shirt’s buttons didn’t match—one was a dull ivory, another a clear plastic, two others matte and gray. Whether the result of habit, necessity, or simple indifference, they created a quiet asymmetry that somehow suited him. His trousers were made of soft cotton, light beige with a fine vertical texture that caught the dappled light as it filtered through the leaves above. The legs of the pants were gently creased, not from ironing, but from the way they fell over his frame as he sat. They folded naturally at the knee and pooled a little over his ankles. A narrow brown belt, scuffed near the buckle, cinched the trousers at the waist. He wore it not tightly and allowed space for his linen shirt to breathe when he moved to shift a knee or to readjust his grip on the cane that stood upright beside him. The old man’s shoulders slumped forward as if even the weight of the heat had settled onto his back. His faded cap shielded his brow from the sun’s glare, though it couldn’t shield him from his time. His hands, knotted and sunspotted, rested quietly on his lap and on his cane, fingers twitching now and then as if remembering work they no longer needed to do. The heavy air didn’t move, not even with a breeze, and the only sound was the soft hum of insects and the occasional twit of the birds overhead.

He blinked slowly, the heat making everything feel slower, thicker, heavier. But he didn’t seem to mind. He just watched—the dust in the sunlight, the ants at his feet, the shimmer of heat rising from the road, waiting for the heat to pass, or perhaps not waiting at all. It was as if he had seen summers like this too many times to be bothered by one more. He shifted slightly, the wooden bench creaking beneath his weight. As he raised a hand to scratch his forearm, something moved. A small, dark insect crept slowly along the pale skin of his arm, its legs brushing lightly over age spots and fine white hairs. It crawled slowly across the thin skin stretched over his bones. He watched it without flinching. It wasn’t an actual bug. It wasn’t a floater either—its grotesque detail, with tiny wiry hairs sprouting from its back and legs, had nothing in common with the simple specks or drifting shadows that dance across the eye. Nor was it a hallucination brought on by heat. The old man had seen these kinds of things before—silent, crawling creatures that no one else ever seemed to notice. He had been seeing them since he was young. Some had names: lust, greed, sloth. Others were harder to place, just shadows that clung and wandered. Everywhere the old man looked, someone was carrying them. He could see the bugs on a young couple a few yards away.

They were sitting beneath a light shade, knees touching, bodies angled inward in that eager, almost in a fragile way. The woman wore a floral sundress and twisted a strand of hair around her finger as she spoke, smiling with every other word. The man beside her wore a pale blue button-down, sleeves rolled neatly to the elbows, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. He nodded along, attentive and smiling—charming, practiced, just enough. To anyone else, they would have looked like a beautiful young couple, all warmth and effortless connection. But through the old man's eyes, the illusion frayed. Ten glossy fat bugs clung to the woman’s collarbone, twitching faintly with each breath, while twenty thin bugs nestled just beneath the man’s jawline, pulsing every time she looked away. Then came the jogger. He thundered past on the path, shirt plastered to his back, breath loud and steady, a metronome of control. His arms pumped like pistons, his pace clean and measured. The jogger looked like a personification of ‘health.’ But the bugs were everywhere. A whole trail of them clung to him like medals: some tucked behind his knees, others bouncing against his ankles like iron shackles. One particularly large one crawled along the line of his spine, thick-legged and gleaming with sweat, its head tucked down as if burrowing deeper with every stride. “Sss… sss…” Another ‘imaginary bug’, crawled his arms giving him goosebumps. Judgment, maybe. He narrowed his eyes to examine his “imaginary” bug.

Or the quieter one – his new habit of condemnation dressed up as wisdom. They had lived on him for years, though sometimes they moved so slowly he forgot they were there at all. He didn’t sweep them away. What would be the point? When you see other people’s bugs so clearly—coiled behind ears, flickering along jawlines, weaving through smiles—you grow oddly comfortable with your own. Familiarity breeds tolerance, even for the grotesque. Besides, what could he really do? When the insects on others were so plain to see—clinging to their collars, nesting in their words—how could he not judge them? It wasn’t malice. He justified himself. It was a reflex. Like flinching at a stench, or narrowing your eyes against too much light. So the judgment and condemnation stayed, coiled on his arm like a pet he never asked for. Although familiar, it was still revolting. There was something about the bug’s appearance that unsettled him in a deeply physical way. Its body was squat and uneven, the color of coal soaked in oil, with a matte finish that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Across its back, patchy segments lifted slightly with each breath, revealing glimpses of a softer, pulpy underlayer—moist, almost raw-looking. Fine, wiry hairs bristled from its joints, curling like burnt thread, and its legs, spindly and too long for its body, moved with a slow, crawling confidence.

Its head—if it could be called that—was tucked low, eyeless, with feelers that twitched constantly, as if sensing not just the air, but the thoughts of the skin it walked on. The old man had thousands of them. Not just one kind—dozens. Maybe more. Some were small and thin, barely visible, like black threads unraveling under his skin. Others were swollen and heavy, bloated with years of unspoken thoughts. A few had red dots scattered across their backs like infected blisters. If you look at it closer, the tiny red dots were irregular and glistening, like the residue of something organic, something half-digested. Some of the dots pulsed faintly, as if the thing itself were still in the process of becoming, still festering. The old man narrowed his eyes. Yes, he recognized those. A certain kind of bug wore those marks—bugs that fed on smugness, on the subtle joy of moral superiority. He had a few of those himself. Maybe more than a few. He could feel one now, sitting just behind his collarbone, still and warm, the red spots pressing faintly against his skin like a reminder of every time he had thought, at least I’m not like them. The old man hated those imaginary bugs. He despised them. And when he saw the bugs on children, even on his own grandsons, silently feeding on their lives, he just wanted to burn them all. Burn all the bugs that sucked the lives out of people and himself.

The old man closed his eyes, trying to breathe past the rage. Just for a moment, he let himself drift. When he opened them again, a young man had taken the seat across from him. The young man was dressed in a tailored black suit, collar sharp, shoes bright, hair slicked back with all sorts of precision. He also sat with perfect posture, legs crossed neatly, a white paper coffee cup resting elegantly in his hand. His other hand scrolled through his phone in slow, practiced swipes. The young business man drank the coffee now and then, feeling the subtle wake it gave him. The young man’s eyes remained fixed on his phone, and the screen’s glow reflected faintly in his pupils. The young man didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. His facial expression was smooth as porcelain with his gaze fixated on the screen. The world was talking to him, whispering through pixels and notifications. The old man blinked. For a fleeting second, he thought he saw himself. Not the version he'd become, worn thin with time, but the version he'd once been—hungry, polished, full of the illusion that life could be conquered with the right look and the right posture. And, full of bugs. The old man in his youth didn’t see the bugs for what they were. But they had been there. They had been there. Clinging quietly to his skin, burrowing into his habits, wrapping around his pride.

The bugs were still on him — nothing about the “imaginary” bugs had changed for the old man except for the old man’s hatred against them. Same as the old man, the whole bug situation would be less likely to change for the young man across the table. And, maybe one day, much later, the young man would come to see and to despise them just as fiercely, and realize the hopeless truth that there is nothing he can do about it. But not yet, and not today. The old man watched the young man in silence. He looked at him to judge him, but he also looked at him to wait for something to happen. Because something always happened. A moment later, the young man paused, thumb hovering mid-scroll. Something had tickled his arm. Absentmindedly, he glanced down—and then his eyes widened. It wasn’t one of his “imaginary” bugs.The shape, the way it moved, even the texture of its shell—everything was different. It was a real bug. Small and hard-backed, with long antennae and precise, deliberate legs. It must have fallen from a tree, carried by the wind. It climbed the young man steadily—over his wrist, along the cuff of his shirt, up toward the elbow—as if he was a tree. With his eyes widened sharply and his disgusted expression, \the young business man jumped to his feet. The coffee slipped from his hand and spilled down his trousers.

He flailed his arm in panic, trying to shake it off. The real bug, because of the force, tumbled to the floor. And, when the real bug was thrown on the ground, the young man stomped on it. Once. Twice. Three times. The tiny creature was crushed beneath his shoe, reduced to a smear with no shape. But the bugs that had always been on him—the ones only the old man could see—didn’t disappear or shrink from fear. If anything, they were more animated. They darted across his contorted face, scrambled along his ears, neck, fingertips, between the folds of his shirt. After the shock of the real bug had passed away, the young man began to smooth himself down. Brushed at the coffee stain, checked his watch, scanned the room to see if anyone had noticed. Then, he left. The floor was marked with a splatter of coffee and the faint remains of the insect. And, across the young man’s back, the bugs—his bugs—moved again, slowly, familiarly, beneath the sunlight. The old man scoffed. It didn’t show on his face, but the bugs told him everything. Judgement, Pride, Derision, and many more danced on the old man. Then something tickled the old man’s forearm. The old man looked down. It was a real bug. It had landed on him silently, and probably the same kind. It crawled just above the liver spots, its tiny legs brushing against skin that had seen too many summers.

He startled—flinched like a boy—and shook it off. The insect hit the bench, twitching, and the old man crushed it under his palm, disgusted. And just like the young man, he looked around to see if anyone had noticed.