Ch 02: The Times, They Are A-Changin'
Good Griff!Chapter 2 – The Times, They Are A-Changin’(In Which Strange Things Are Afoot and Feet Are Strange Things)
My hair has gone white and my eyes have gone yellow. Welp, only one thing to do: scream. “WHAAAAAAAAAAaat the sweet baby Jesus is this!?”
“Do you mind with the noise? My head’s still a little tender after last night,” Steve calls from the other room. He appears in the doorway. “What are you yelling about, Gil? Y’alright?” He gets a good look at me. “Your eyes are yellow.”
What would I do without him? “NOOOOOOOOO! REALLY? And here I was worried about chipping a nail!” I’m concerned I wasn’t sarcastic enough. “I already frickin’ noticed, smart guy! What the hell’s the matter with me?”
He thinks about it for a second. “Maybe you have jaundice. Did you drink your liver to death last night? Because knowing you, that’s a distinct possibility.”
“I already told you on the phone. I wasn’t even that drunk when we came home.”
“Yeah, about that phone call. I’m still mighty pissed at you for this tattoo thing,” he grumbles.
“Man, I already told you. I had nothing to do with that. Maybe you went back out after I went to bed and got it yourself,” I try to reason. A realization hits me. “Wait, so you were serious? You really have a tattoo? Lemme see!”
Suddenly, he’s not looking so angry at me so much as embarrassed. “No way!” He starts backing away back into the main room.
I follow after him and start poking him in the chest. “Oh? Then how can I know you’re not lying if you don’t show me and prove you actually have it?”
“Fuck off, you Farrah Fawcett wannabe!” he shouts at me as he turns to make a break for it. He starts towards his room, but the door’s closed and he wouldn’t have time to open it before I caught him. He turns towards the kitchenette, but it’s too late. His hesitation gives me the time to throw myself at him and side tackle him. I sit on his chest.
“Okay, little man. I realize this must be a dream come true for you right now, but I’m just not interested in you in that way. I think we should just be friends,” I tell him with fake seriousness.
“Hardy har har. Would you mind kindly getting off me?” He grouses.
“Nooot untiiil you shooow meeee!♪” I sing.
“I CAN’T if you’re SITTING ON ME!”
“Okay, then just tell me where and I’ll find it,” I wink at him.
He looks like he’s thinking it over then lets out a heavy sigh. “Fuggin’ fine. They’re on my thighs.”
I stand up. “Oh HO! Two of them! Who knew you were so daring?” I chuckle as I help him to his feet. I sit down on the couch and he stays standing.
Steve unbuckles his belt, unbuttons his jeans, and lets them drop. “WHOOO! Take it off!” I howl at him. He scowls at me and lowers the waistband on the right side of his boxers. There, crisp and clean on his thigh, is the goofiest damn thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It’s a tattoo. Of a pillow. With eyes. Above a pair of crossed feathers. What. The shit.
Naturally, I burst out laughing. “BA HA ha ha ha haa! Man, that is, without a doubt, the greatest thing I have ever seen. It’s like the worst jolly roger ever. Of all time.”
The look on his face. Oh my god, it’s priceless. It’s the perfect combination of ‘Why me?’, ‘Kill me now’, and ‘I’m gonna murder you.’“Yeah yeah yeah, yuk it up there, friendo.”
“Are you sure you’re not gay?” I laugh. “Because you had that girl macking on you all night and-“
“What?” he interrupts.
“Oh yeah, totally, dude,” I make a throwaway gesture, “She’s obviously crazy about you and you didn’t even notice. And now you’ve got the tutti fruitiest tattoo I’ve ever seen.
“I’m not gay!” He spits out way too suddenly. “And so what if I were? Which I’m not. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with that.”
I give him a wry look. “Hey. Remember who you’re talking to.”
Steve looks puzzled for a second, then relieved. “Oh. Right.”
Well I think that’s a minefield of a conversation we’ll get to another time. “So you’ve got the same thing on both sides?” I fix him with an even stare. “Why in God’s name would you get that?”
He looks super serious. “Probably the same reason you changed your eyes and hair, grandma.”
Oh. That sobered me up. “So you’re saying that these things just happened? Like, on their own?”
He pulls up his pants and plunks down on the couch next to me. He runs his hands through his curly black hair in frustration. “I mean, I know the answer should be ‘No’ because weird shit doesn’t happen,” He holds his face in his hands, “The world is painfully boring and nothing amazing ever happens,” He sighs and looks up at me, “But I have no rational explanation for this. You said that, what, an hour ago, your eyes and your hair were normal, right?”
“Well, I can’t tell you about my eyes, but my hair was definitely its normal brown,” I chip in.
“And nothing happened between then and when you noticed that change?” Uh oh, he’s getting all serious on me. It’s a really rare thing for Steve to get serious about anything, so it’s kind of cool to see it happen. Like an eclipse. He’s going into brainiac mode. I can actually see his brain cells firing. “You didn’t go near any sort of chemicals, radiation, unrecognizable technology? Was anyone suspicious following you around? Were you bitten by any strange insects or other animals? Anything unusual at all that could bleach your hair or damage your eyes?”
“Wow. No to everything. What was that about bugs? You think I’m Spiderman?” I say, doubtingly.
“Well fuck if I know!” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “I’m just throwing ideas out here. We’re in virgin territory here.”
I laugh, “Yeah, YOU are. I guarantee you I’m not.”
He facepalms. “You know what I mean. This is unprecedented shit happening to us. People don’t just change instantaneously like that. Random Cutie Marks don’t just appear on people. These are uncharted waters.”
“What marks? That’s the pony thing?” I ask in confusion.
“Cutie Mark. It’s that picture the ponies have on their ass,” he begins to explain, “It represents-“
Oh god, he’s going to keep talking about this. That’s my limit.
“NOPE!” I shout as I shoot up off the couch, leaping over the coffee table. “Don’t care! I missed my morning run today, so I’m going to get that in now.” I go grab a ball cap from my room and secure my now shockingly white hair under it. I make for the front door.
I’m half way out when Steve calls after me, “Wait a sec!” I stop. “YOU missed your run this morning? How the double deuce did that happen?”
I turn toward him with an embarrassed face. “Ehhh… Just didn’t sleep well last night. Really weird nightmares,” with that I turn and step out.
Just as I’m closing the door I think I hear Steve mutter, “You too?”
But now is not the time for that. Now is the time to put my brain on autopilot and just run. Now is the time for speed.
»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»
I cut my run short tonight. My calves and ankles were starting to hurt for some reason, so I called it early. I came back home and scarfed down some of whatever it was that Steve made for dinner. Say what you will about the guy, but being a fatty means he knows good food. Now we’re sitting in front of the TV watching this week’s episode of Portal, AKA best show ever.
As I’m sitting here watching, my legs keep cramping up and my ankles keep locking up in an extended position. It hurts like a bitch. I must have pushed myself too hard today. I manage to soldier my way through the end of the episode, but by the end it, I’m barely hanging in there. After it’s done, I’m ready to just head to bed. I’m in pain and I’m exhausted from a bitch of a day.
I grab some painkillers from the bathroom. I close the medicine cabinet and examine my reflection in the mirror. I’m used to seeing my face with dark brown, almost black eyes and topped with my spiky brown hair. It’s weird to see them so different. Not even counting those changes, my face looks wrong for some reason. Other than my hair and eyes, I look the same. So why do I expect to see something different looking back at me? Forget it. I’m not up for this kind of self-identity bullshit even on a good day. I gulp down the painkillers and stick my mouth under the faucet to wash them down.
My feet are still all locked up as I make my way to my room, forcing me to walk tip-toe. Steve notices this. He gives me that worried look I hate. “Hey Gil, you alright?”
I’m at my door. I answer him, “Yeah, just muscle cramps. Musta pushed myself too hard. I know you’ve never had that problem, but that’s all this is.”
He doesn’t even rise to my jab. He just keeps looking at me with those big brown doe eyes all full of worry. I fucking hate that. “Okay. But if anything else weird happens, let me know. I’ll be up a while yet. You know me, the wee hours are the best hours,” he says and gives me a weak, apologetic smile.
That face. I don’t need that pitiful fucking face. I want to just punch it in. But instead, I slam my door and move to my bed. I strip down to my undies and sit down on the bed. I massage my leg muscles for a few minutes before laying down.
I lay there for a while, just thinking. I know, I know. It’s dangerous, but I do do it occasionally. This was a day I’d love to forget, but somehow I don’t think I will. Even discounting the pain in my legs, I still feel off. I can’t understand it. It’s like there’s an itch about to form just under my skin, throughout my entire body. I sigh. Well, at least I don’t have to work tomorrow. I’m not sure when, but at some point I drift off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~zzZZZZ~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHIRP! CHIRP! CHIRP! There’s the alarm again. I had those weird dreams again last night, but they weren’t so bad this time. Just images of clouds and bright colors everywhere. There was this one blue blob that kept following me around. The dreams weren’t bad, so I actually got some rest last night. That and the fact that my legs don’t hurt anymore and the morning is already better than yesterday.
I sit up in bed and stretch. Time to get moving. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and stand up. Or at least, I try to. As soon as I’m up on two legs, I’m already falling flat on my face.
“Okay, ow. The hell was that? Are my legs still asleep?” I mutter to myself. I sit up and reach down to massage my legs awake. As I begin to rub, I think how soft and silky my fur is.
...Waaaaaiiiit a second. Something about that seems… off. I look down at my paws, but they seem normal: tan fur, three toes, soft pink paw pads. Yep.
What.
WHAT?!
PAWS!? I have paws! Where are my feet? WHO TOOK MY FEET?! I need those! I start to hyperventilate. Jesus fuck, why is this happening? Yesterday was one thing, but I need my feet. Wait, if it didn’t stop at hair and eyes, what else has changed?
I push myself to all fours, and then shakily stand up. It’s painfully slow inching along on these new paws, as I carefully stagger over to my mirror and I’m stunned by what I see. I don’t… what? By now, I’m a gibbering wreck, breathing hard and spouting random noises of panic. This whatever is spreading. Yesterday, my hair was feathered. Today, my hair is feathers. Honest to fuck feathers. Where my hair used to be, and spreading down the back of my neck, is a layer of downy white feathers. In place of bangs, I have a trio of longer, wider feathers that fade to purple at the tip. They’ve even spread up toward the sides of my face and completely cover my ears. I turn my head to inspect. Nevermind, I was wrong. The feathers aren’t covering my ears; they’re just gone.
GAH! MY EARS ARE GONE! The sight of the little holes in the side of my head with no ears shocks me so much I yowl and leap backward a full six feet. If I weren’t so panicked, I’d be impressed. I shamble to the door as fast as I can and throw it open. I step out and start toward Steve’s room, but I stop short. My door faces the back of the couch, but I can see one of his legs draped over the side. Lazy kid must have fallen asleep out here again.
“Steve, wake up!” I shout.
All I get in response is an annoyed growl.
“WAKE UP, LAZY BONES!”
He kicks his leg a little bit, his foot twitching wildly, and grunts. “Uhhhhh. What time izzit?”
“6:30!” I bark, “Wake your sorry ass up, retard! It’s an emergency!”
He moans again. His hand raises up over the back of the drab beige couch, covered in stains, and waves me off. “Leave me alone. Ah need more th’n three hours o’ sleep. Unlike you, some o’ us need our beauty rest,” he mumbles.
“GET! UP! FATASS! You said to tell you if anything else weird happened! It did! MY FUCKING EARS ARE GONE!”
He doesn’t respond for a couple seconds. But finally, he reacts. “What?” he asks, sounding more alert. He sits up, his head popping up like a gopher, and turns to look at me, a thin line of drool running down his cheek. Oh god. Not him now.
“It got you too! The weird stuff is spreading! Look at me! Look at you!” I shriek at him.
“Me?” he asks, looking confused. He brushes his hair out of his face, which seems to confuse him further. Not only because it’s not normally long enough to need it, but because it’s a dark purple with blue streaks. He takes a lock in his fingers and looks at it closely. He turns back to me and his eyes take a second to focus on me. His bright green eyes.
“Gilda, what the fuck?” He asks, with more detached shock than outright panic.
“What did you call me?” I demand. That name. It sticks in my mind like a thorn. I jerk my way over to him. “What is that name?”
“I…bugger. What?” he looks around, bewildered. “OHHHHH! I know what’s going on,” he sighs in relief.
“You… You do?” I beg him, my hand clutching the couch back in a death grip.
“Yeaaah. I’m dreaming,” he states matter-of-factly.
Is this guy serious? “No, you’re not! This is real! I’m really covered in feathers here! Get your ass together, I need your help!”
“Nah, I have lucid dreams all the time. Don’t worry about it,” he says, and pats my hand, trying to be reassuring, “because you’re not really real. This is all just in my head. Now I’m going to go back to sleep.” He lies back down. “Nice feet by the way. They go really well with the tail.”
The…. tail? I turn my head and look down at my ass. Sure enough, there’s a furry lion tail, the same color fur as my paws, merrily swishing back and forth.
“I… da… Habadidina,” I sputter. Dammit, brain, don’t you quit on me now. Too late, full systems failure. My legs fall out from under me, my vision goes black, and I pass out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~zzZZZZ~~~~~~~~~~~~
I awake several hours later in a daze. Why am I lying on the floor? Why is Steve shaking me, shrieking “Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup,” like a little girl? Why is his hair purple? Why does he have blue… horse ears?
Oh right. Oh! Right! I bolt upright. “How long was out? What’s going on?” I demand.
“Ohmygodmygod, thank Asgard you’re okay. You woke me up earlier and you had a tail and feathers and I had purple hair and I thought it was just another dream, so I went back to sleep, though that doesn’t really make sense to still be sleepy in a dream but whatever, I went back to sleep and then I just woke up now and it was, like, just after 1 and I saw that I still had the purple hair but it was for real, not a dream, and now I also have all this other stuff and I freaked out but then I saw you on the floor and I thought you were dead, but you’re not! You’re aliiiive!” Steve spews all in one breath. Wow, that was actually impressive. He sits down heavily on the back of the couch, trying to catch his breath. He sways and falls backward, his legs now draping over the back. They end in dark blue hooves.
I hear him take a deep breath in through his nose, mutter, “Infinite patience,” and exhale through his mouth. After a few seconds, he sounds much calmer, “Gayle… what is happening to us?”
I stand up and totter on my changed legs. I ease over to sit down heavily next to him. He’s staring blankly at the ceiling. I sigh, “I don’t know, little buddy.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes. I can’t tell what’s going through his head. Eventually, Steve breaks the silence. “We need to assess the situation. We need to take stock of our changes, try to remember anything that could have caused this, figure out where this started. Maybe if we get some insight into what’s actually happening, we can try to find a way to reverse it.” He’s in serious business mode again. He continues to look straight up. “What’s the first strange thing you noticed, Gil? Was it the hair?”
“You keep calling me that,” I point out.
“Huh? Calling you what? I said ‘Gayle’,” he says quickly.
“No, at first I thought I was hearing you wrong, but the last couple of days, sometimes you call me ‘Gil’, and this morning when you were still half asleep, you called me ‘Gilda’,” I tell him.
“I did?” His eyes get wide for a second then dart around the room. He looks like he’s processing something. “Interesting.” His eyes snap back to me. “So was that the first thing? Was there anything else out of the ordinary, no matter how small, that happened before that?”
“Um….” I wrack my brain. “I guess the first thing might have been when we were at the bar. I was in the middle of a sentence, and then suddenly it was like I was dreaming. When it was over, you guys said I’d been spaced out for a few minutes. That was about quarter to 11.”
He turns toward me. “Oh yeah, I think I remember that. It was weird. You sort of mouthed some words, but you didn’t really say anything.” He turns back to the ceiling. “What was the ‘dream’ about?”
How do I even describe it? It was so different from anything I’d experienced before. Or maybe, it was exactly like something I’d experienced before, just a really long time ago.
“How do you mean?” he asks. Did I just say that all out loud?
“I’m not sure. I never had a dream like that before, but I’ve been having them every night since then.” I lean back and stare at the ceiling too. “It almost didn’t feel like a dream. It felt more like a vague memory, except it wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen before. I couldn’t see very well. It was all just colors and shapes and voices and flashes of light. At the end, there was this one voice.” I shudder as I remember it. “It was so creepy. It said, ‘Five score-‘”
“Divided by four,” we finish at the same time. I quickly turn to him to find him kneeling on the couch, leaning toward me, his face uncomfortably close to mine. I notice he’s got a blue lump on his forehead.
I’m at a loss for words. “How…” I croak, “How did you know that?”
“I had the same dream,” he says, sounding like some sort of fucking wizard.
“When?”
“Yesterday. I was asleep. I was having a dream, then suddenly it just shifted. It was just like you said. There were colors and shapes. There were towers all over the place. I was in the middle of a group of these… colorful blobs, I guess. We were all moving in one direction fairly quickly. They were screaming. ‘Run!’ they were saying. ‘Sunny, help!’ ‘Hide, Daisy!’ ‘He’s coming this way!’ There was so much screaming…” He trails off.
Steve shifts and finally sits normally like a regular person. “Ow!” he cries and adjusts his butt. “Not used to that.” He sighs. “After that, there were these flashes of light. They were coming closer and closer. I heard this… laughter. It was horrible. It was this goofy sounding guffaw, but a goofy guffaw as it would sound coming from a psychopathic clown who’s about to murder you, skin you, and wear your face as a mask. He was…” Steve gulps. “He was singing. The song went, ‘Five score, five score, divided by four.’” He starts to sing it in a slow, haunting little melody. I shift uncomfortably at this. He continues, “‘Five score, five score, divided by four. Something something removed. Something body confused. Something game something will play. Cast something away.’ I don’t remember it very well. I… don’t think I want to.” He stops and pauses.
“That’s okay, man. I don’t think I would want to either.” I pat him on the shoulder. “Then what happened?”
“Then nothing,” he says simply.
“Nothing?”
“Then there was an extraordinarily bright flash, some excruciating pain, and I woke up. My thighs itched, which led me to the cutie marks. That’s when I called you.”
“Shit, man.”
“Yeah.”
“I told ya I didn’t do it,” I chuckle.
He turns and scowls at me. “I could use a drink.”
“Isn’t that what got us into this mess?”
“Well more couldn’t hurt,” he chuckles. “This is some birthday we’ve had, huh? Didn’t even get a cake.”
“Like you need more cake, fatass,” I poke him in the gut.
“Hey! For the millionth time, I’m not fat.” He brushed my finger away.
“Okay, how tall are you?” I ask.
“Six foot even.”
“And how much do you weigh?”
“About 95 kilos,” he responds.
I roll my eyes. “There’s the kilograms again. You always do that. What is that in pounds, like a normal person?”
He rolls his eyes upwards, and makes some waving gestures in the air with his finger. I recognize his “I’m doing math” face. “Um… approximately 210 pounds.”
“So, fat.”
“Think what you want, but not everyone’s a gross stick like you. 210 may be out of shape, but it’s not fat,” he says indignantly, “And you may not want to eat cake on your birthday, but if I want some the day after on MY birthday… I’ll…” He trails off. That’s weird.
“What’s wrong?”
He shoots to his feet, err hooves, and turns to me. “Quick, what time were you born?”
“What? Who cares? Who remembers that sort of thing?” I ask in confusion.
“I do! Don’t you have a copy of your birth certificate around here somewhere?” he bursts.
I’m lost. “Um, yeah, in my desk. It-“
He almost trips over the coffee table, but Steve shoots toward my room. As he goes, he makes clip clopping noises and I notice for the first time he has a bushy, tangled tail the same dark purple with light blue streaks as his hair. “Whoa, when did that happen?” I call after him.
“When did what happen?” he calls back from my room. I hear him open a drawer and start rummaging around.
“When did you get a tail? And the horse feet and ears for that matter?”
“While I was sleeping. I’m growing a horn too! You just now noticed?” he calls as he slams a drawer. “I can’t find dick in this hazardous waste dump you call a room!”
“Well sorry me, miss prissy pants!” I taunt, “Most of us didn’t go to school to be professionally anal retentive! It’s probably in the lower left. Why do you need it?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m right!” he announces, “And besides, being a librarian is not anal retentive. There’s nothing weird about liking things to be in order.” He continues to riffle through papers. “Now, the fact that if I ever met Melvil Dewey I’d totally blow him? I admit that’s weird, but the guy was a fucking hero in my book. …Get it? Book!”
“Ha ha, you’re a fucking comed-“
“FOUND IT!” he proclaims and rushes back into the main room, sitting back down next to me.
“Let’s see here… time of birth… HA I FUCKING KNEW IT!” he announces triumphantly. Jeez. Who knew a guy could get so excited about fact checking? “Abigayle Theresa Griffin, born 10:42 pm!”
“Your point?” I spit impatiently.
“I was born at 12:04 pm the next day,” he informs me.
“Yeah, so?”
“You said that you had that vision at approximately quarter to 11, right?”
I’m beginning to see where this is going. “Go on.”
His voice is start to get higher and faster as he gets more excited. “Well I had mine just about noonish the next day! And you know that ‘score’ is another word for twenty, right? So what would ‘five score, divided by four’ equal?”
Christ, he’s making me do math at a time like this. I figure it out in my head, “Um, twenty five.”
He continues on his roll, “WHICH!” he punctuates this with a raised index finger, “We both just turned...”
Holy shit, the pieces all just fell into place. I finish his thought “…The same exact minute we had the dreams.”
“Exactly, my fine feathered friend!” He cheers.
“Don’t call me that,” I scold him, “And wipe that smirk off your face. You’re grinning like the cat that got the canary.”
“Ah, I think you’re both the cat AND the canary here, Gilda,” he chuckles.
“What?” I question. That name again. Why does it sound so familiar? “What does that mean? And what’s that name?”
With one fluid movement, he snags his laptop off the coffee table, opens it, and is already typing something in. He clicks a few times, and then spins the screen around to show me a page. It’s a wiki entry showing a picture of a creature. It has the back half of a lion, with paws and tail like mine. Its front end looks like an eagle, with white feathers like mine. There are even three large ones in front that fade to purple at the tip.
“Gayle Theresa Griffin?” he announces, “Meet Gilda the Griffon.”
/_‾_‾_‾TO BE
CONTINUED‾_‾_‾_〉
Ch 01: Five Score, Divided by Four
Good Griff!Chapter 1 – Four Score, Divided by Four(In Which We Meet Our Charming Protagonists)
Hey. I’m Gayle. It’s nice to meet me, I know, but hold your applause until you know me better. I’m Abigayle Theresa Griffin, as my parents liked to scream when I was up to no good. I was named after my grandmother, though it sounds a little too snooty if you ask me. But that’s parents for ya. I love ‘em, but they’re too far up their own asses most of the time. I’m going to say the words “chief of medicine”. That stereotypical doctor you just pictured? That’s my dad, complete with martini and golf club. Now imagine an older, less fit Venus Williams in a pantsuit. That’s my mother. Moms is some sort of money… stock… thing. A broker? She tried explaining it to me a few times, but fuck if I understand what she does. They have a place here in the city, but they spend most of their time at their house out in Montauk. It works for me because, while I love ‘em, they’re best in small doses. No brothers or sisters either. My Moms said having me was “like laying a giant egg” and “never again.” Pfft, moms.
You might say fitness is my life. I’m a wildly successful personal trainer at a gym here in the city. And I run. The faster the better. Ain’t no runner alive better than me. I’m pretty sure I could crush a man’s skull between my thighs. And I do it everywhere, all the time. Not crushing heads, though that would be pretty ballin’. The running, I mean. Who needs a car in New York anyway? I get up early, run a dozen or two miles around the neighborhood, then run to work where I get to yell at fat rich people and force them to exercise, and THEY PAY ME to do it. What’s not to love?
You want to know more? Well, I’ve got that tall, dark, and sexy thing going on that makes the guys fall all over themselves to try getting into my pants. And why not? I’m so smoking hot, I’d fuck myself if I could. They’re welcome to try, but I’m WAY too hot for any man, as my girlfriend will tell you. Yeah, I’m gay, so what? You want to make something of it, I’ll try that skull crushing thing for real. So yeah, I’m a tough, sexy lesbian with rich parents and everything going for me. I’ll excuse you if you think my name is Mary Sue. But it’s not. Like I said, I’m Gayle, and I’m the baddest cat you will ever know. NOW you may applaud.
My roommate, on the other hand, is the opposite. His name’s Steve and he’s, like, the anti-Gayle. He’s lazy, unmotivated, and doesn’t seem like he cares about anything. His real name is Larry, but he said that makes him sound “like a fat sixty-year-old man with no hair and grease stains all over his wifebeater.” I said it makes him sound like a stooge. So he goes by his middle name: Larry Steven Boone.
He says he’s a librarian, but I’m not sure he actually does anything. I mean that literally. There are some days I’m not sure he’s even still technically alive. On days he’s not “at work”, I’ll go out and come back and he hasn’t moved. He just lays around sleeping and reading. I do occasionally see him writing stuff in this dumb little notebook he won’t ever let me see. He says it’s ideas for stories. I asked him why he doesn’t write something. He just told me, “Eh. It’s too much trouble.” So yeah, that’s him: completely uncool.
Now, you might be wondering why two people so completely opposite live together. Well it’s simple. He posted an ad for a roommate. I needed an apartment. That’s it. I answered his ad and we’ve been getting on like a house on fire ever since. That is to say, not well. I didn’t come up with that. Steve did. But it’s not so bad. Even though I’m so awesome and he’s so… him, we’re still friends. It’s unlikely, I know. For the first few weeks, we pretty much didn’t talk to each other. To tell the truth, I thought he might be some kind of disabled shut-in or something. But then one day I caught him watching the best show ever and we weirdly bonded over it.
I’m, of course, referring to the awesomest, most asskickingest show ever made, Portal. What? You thought I was going to say something stupid, like that Pony show? Steve may like it, but I’m not a tiny little girl like him. No, Portal is the way to go. He says he likes it for the “dimension hopping, reality-bending sci-fi goodness”. I like the fightin’ and the shootin’.
Anyway, one day I saw him watching it and I was all, “Dude! You like Portal?”
And Steve was like, “Of course. YOU like Portal?”
And I said, “Fuck. The hell. YES!”
We watched it together and we’ve been weird friends ever since. I give him shit. He gives me shit. It’s all good. Who’s to say what a weird friendship is? None of my other friends are- Wait. Come to think of it, I guess other than Steve and my girlfriend, I don’t really have any other friends. Huh. Guess I’m just too cool for most people.
Oh, there’s another weird thing we found out we have in common: we were born just a day apart. I’m the older one, naturally. Which brings me to today. It’s my twenty fifth birthday! I can now legally rent a car. Go me! I just hope nothing bizarre happens that makes me have to actually rent one and take it on a crazy road trip with a bunch of weirdos. Ha, like that could happen.
It’s been a pretty normal day considering the date. I went for my morning run. I went to work and embarrassed the hell out of the whitest, snootiest man on Earth. He’s my client, so it’s okay. Personally, I think he’s into that. I think he ought to get himself a dominatrix, but I’m not going to say anything because I like his money. I went home and watched the game. I did have some weird dreams this morning though, but I can’t quite remember them. And now here I am in front of my favorite pub. Come on, did you think I was going to spend my birthday night NOT getting hammered?
I walk inside and spot the people I’m looking for at a booth in the corner. First, is the human potato. I mean Steve. Next, is his friend Mona. I don’t really know her that well. They work together at the library or something. She’s alright I guess, but she’s basically just a more female version of him. A while back, I asked him if she was his girlfriend, but he just said he “doesn’t go in for that sort of thing.” I don’t know if he meant girls or what. That’s his business and I really don’t want to picture him getting with a woman. Fuck! Now I’m doing it.
And then… Oh and then, there’s Ellen. We met in a marathon. We wound next to each other at about mile nine and we just hit it off. I even slowed down so she could keep up. I’m a saint, right? We chatted as we ran and we finished together. Well, I chatted most of the time. She needed to save her breath for about half the race. She’s pretty quiet and quite pretty. Ha, I thought up that one. She’s the more sensible one of us. She’s there to clip my wings when I start to get too… well… me. And she’s got that blonde girl next door look that makes me just want to jump her bones right now. No, stop it, girl. You have to wait until later to unwrap your present.
I march over to them and announce myself. “Attention, mortals! Your goddess has arrived! You may now start the party in my honor!”
Steve shouts, “Norrrrm!” as I slide into the booth next to Ellen and slip my arm around her.
“Hey, sweetie. You’re late. Happy bi-“ she starts. She wrinkles her nose. “You had to run here? You stink, Gayle.”
“Hey, you know me. Poundin’ the pavement, all day, er’ry day. Besides, it’s not like I have a car.”
Steve cuts in, “You know, they have this wonderful new invention called the ‘cab’. You should look into it.” Mona giggles at his joke.
“Man, fuck that noise,” I laugh. “What, am I going to PAY someone to bring me here when I can get here by myself just fine? It was only twenty blocks.”
“It’s your birthday,” responds Ellen. “I think we can pay for you to take a cab just this once.”
“Hey,” says Steve, “If you’re in such a giving mood, you can pay for my drinks. It’s mah birfday too, you know.”
“Yeah. Tomorrow. But nice try, smart guy,” I shoot him down.
“Close enough,” he says. “Tonight is to celebrate the big two-five for the both us.”
“Pfft. No way. It’s all about me. Just like every other day. I thought you knew that by now.”
“It’s okay, Steve,” squeaks Mona. “I’ll pay for you.” She must have a thing for him. I just don’t think he realizes it. He must be gay or something.
“Well then, I need my alco-mo-hol. WAITER!” I scream.
The night goes on like this for a while. I’m awesome, and the booze just makes me awesome. Ellen’s awesome, but she keeps me grounded. She stops me from challenging some biker-looking guy to an arm wrestle. Steve sits and talks about whatever it is he talks about. Internet stuff and books and TV and shit. As the night goes on he gets louder with his opinions on his… whatever.
“Dude! I’m telling ya. Season five was absolute shit of the highest caliber! ’S like, they were purposely trollin’ us.” God he’s noisy.
Mona is hanging on his every word. “I know! The finale was the worst. It just ends with Twilight getting zapped and then it’s over.”
“What’re you talkin’ about? It ended with ‘im attackin’ Canterlot and just zappin’ victims at random as they flee.”
I turn to Ellen. “What in fuck are they talking about?”
“Oh, it’s My Little Pony again. Just ignore it.”
I turn back to Steve. “Hey pony lover, keep it down. Some of us here aren’t five year old girls.”
“Hey, fuck you, hater. Ponies’re… MLP is fuggin’ great!”
“Ponyman, you’re drunk. Why don’t you call it a night? For such a fatty, you really are a lightweight.” I jab.
“I’m not drunk! You’re drunk! You gotta be if you hate one of tha best shows ever.”
Mona’s looking slightly mortified and Ellen just looks on in amusement.
“Man, why do you even care about this thing so much?” I ask him. “I mean you love Portal, but you’re not this passionate about even that. You don’t care about anything this much.”
He looks confused. “I dunno. Like, if you told me a meteor was comin’ down here righ’ now, and all I hadda do to save ma life was move ten feet to tha right in tha nex’ ten minutes and I’d be fine, I’d be like, ‘Ehhh. I’m comfr’ble here.’”
Ellen gives him a look like she just saw a puppy get hit by a car. “You don’t care if you die? You’d die just because you don’t feel like getting up?”
“Yeah! I just dun give a shit! ‘Cept fer the ponies. I dun know why, I jus’ do.”
Aw man, now I feel bad for the kid. Time to work the old Gayle charm. “Well, that’s cool I guess, man. I don’t get it, but as long as you’ve got something you-“
☄~=-@-=~☆~=-@-=~★~=-@-=~☆~=-@-=~☾
Holy fuck. What’s going on? I’m somewhere. I can’t see. It’s dark, but it’s bright. I only see shapes. And flashes. The ground is white. It’s far away.
“He’s coming back!”
What? Who said that? Everything is blurry. I see white beneath me and around me. There are colorful blobs moving everywhere.
“Retreat!”
“Never! We can take him!” Was that me? Did I just say that? There are flashes above me, now around me. Am I moving? I feel the wind. It’s so fast. There’s another flash.
It hurts. Why does it hurt? Something brown and grey is in front of me. SHITSHITSHIT!
“Did you really think you could beat me?”
Who is talking? Are they talking to me?
“All by yourself? Look around. Your compatriots have all fled. Poooor little bird. You’re allllll alone. And you will be for a long time, in a pretty little cage.”
There’s another flash and I see a glow all around me. SHITSHIT!
“Five score, divided by four-“
☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁
“SHIT!”
“Whoa, Gayle. Are you alright, sweetie?” Ellen asks from my left. I’m in the pub.
“What just happened?!” I demand.
“Calm down, Gayle. Everything’s okay.”
“Ha!” barks Steve. “An’ you call me a lightweight! Least I didn’t space out for five minutes.”
“What?” I check my watch. 10:47. I don’t know why I bothered, I didn’t know what time it was before I zoned.
“He’s right,” Mona adds. “You stopped talking in the middle of a sentence and were just kind of staring off into space for a few minutes.”
I was?
“You were,” Ellen says. Did I ask out loud? Sometimes I think that girl can real my mind. “Maybe you were right and we should ALL call it a night.
“I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m drunk, especially since it’s still so early.” I say, hesitant. A rare mood for me. This whole thing has me shaken up. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I am. Now, are you okay to drive?” Ellen asks.
“Baby, we’ve been over this. I don’t have a car.”
“Yes, I know,” she explains patiently. I swear she sounds like she’s a kindergarten teacher sometimes. “But Steve does, and he clearly cannot drive himself. Steve, give Gayle your keys.”
“NO!”
“Come on, lazy bones. Fork ‘em over,” I thrust my hand at him.
“NUUUU!”
“Steve,” Mona practically coos at him, “Could I pretty please see your keys for just one tiny second?”
“OKAY!” He fishes his keys out of his pocket and hands them to Mona, who immediately tosses them to me.
“TRAITOR! J’accuse! You’ve sold me out to this… this hhhharpy!” he wails.
I lean over to kiss Ellen goodbye. She surprises me with just a quick peck on the lips. She gives me a coy smile. “I guess you’ll have to take a rain check on my present.” Hot damn, I love this girl.
I stand up and stretch my back. “Come on, man. Let’s get you home and get you to bed.”
“Yes, mommy,” he mumbles and meekly follows me out.
We walk to his car, a real piece of shit Passat. Or rather, I walk and Steve stumbles. I slide into the driver’s seat and he pretty much falls over across the back seat. By the time we’re a block away I can already hear him snoring. I get us back to our building and I wake him up. Fuck if I’m going to carry his lazy ass up four floors. He can walk his ass to the elevator. He does. Elevators are for pussies. I take the stairs like a winner. I get to our floor just as Steve is shambling his way out of the elevator and we make our way to our door. He manages to make it to his room and slams the door. Well so much for him.
I’m still feeling out of it. There’s something about that… whatever that I saw that’s really throwing me off. I feel like something’s out of place, like my skin doesn’t fit right or something. I should go to bed too. I’ve got to get up bright and early for work. I strip, slide into bed, and close my eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~zzZZZZ~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHIRP! CHIRP! CHIRP! The sound of my alarm is torture. I smack it and go back to sleep.
“...slippin’ slippin’. Into the future. Time keeps on-” Ugh. My cell phone. Who the fuck is calling me so ear- 9:12?! Fuck, I’m late for work!
Sure enough, it’s my boss calling me to ask me where I am and why I’m letting down a very valuable client. I spit out an excuse and tell him I’ll be right in.
I throw on some clothes, grab Steve’s keys, and jot down a quick note telling him I’ve stolen his car. I practically fly down the stairs, out the front door, and into the car. It’s still taking forever to get to the gym. Fucking traffic.
While I sit in the car, I still feel off. I had nightmares all night. I can’t really place them. But I remember lots of bright colors. I remember a rainbow. I remember clouds. And at the end, I remember the brown and gray thing and the pain. Since when can you feel pain in a dream? Whatever this thing is, it’s really throwing me for a loop. I’m late to work. I’m never late to work. I slept through my morning run. I never sleep through my morning run. Never.
Eventually, I make it in to the gym and I guess either my uneasiness shows or I just look like shit because my boss lets me off without much fuss. I am his best PT after all. He handed my client off to one of the other trainers for the morning so I have a little time before my next one. Life continues as normal.
Just after noon, my phone rings. It’s from Steve.
“You’re doing good, Paul,” I tell my current “victim”. “Just keep at it. Give me fifty more and you can take a two minute break. Excuse me one sec, I gotta take this.”
I answer my phone. “YOUCRAZYBITCHWHATDIDYOUDOTOME?!?!”
“Who is this?” I answer sweetly.
“You know exactly who this is, you lunatic!” Steve screams through the phone. “This is the guy you tattooed last night!”
What?
“What?”
“I don’t remember a lot about what happened last night, but I remember I was talking about the Ponies, and you were making fun of me, and then I wake up just now with a fucking pony tattoo and my car is gone! What, in the name of all that’s good and just in the universe made you think you can pull this sort of shit?!”
“Whoa whoa whoa. Hold your horses,” I tell him.
“HA FUCKING HA! This isn’t a goddamn joke!”
“What, seriously?”
“YES, seriously!”
“Well man, I don’t know what to tell you. We actually came home pretty early. I drove us back about eleven-ish and you went right to sleep. You can ask Ellen or what’s-her-name.”
“It’s Mona. And did either of them see us get home?” He asks
“Well they saw us leave.” I tell him.
“Then you could have brought me to a tattoo parlor on the way home and had them give me a cutie mark tattoo,” He says, sounding like Sherlock Holmes cracking the case.
“A what? Man, I don’t even know what that is. Does this seem like the kind of thing I’d do?”
“YES!”
“No, I mean, if I were going to get you a tattoo, what kind would I get you?”
He pauses. “Um… well actually, a penis on my forehead would be more your style.”
“Ha ha! You’re damn right! Now if you don’t mind, I’m working here. Some of us have jobs. Don’t drive off anywhere and we’ll talk about this when I get home.”
“FUCK YOU!” I hear just as I hang up.
I turn back to my client. “Okay, Paul, just fifty more,” I order him. He groans.
»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»
I leave work at five and start the long, slow drive home. When I’m stopped at a red light, I notice a couple people crossing the street in front of the car give me weird looks, but I don’t think anything of it. People are always pretty much in awe of me wherever I go. I finally get to my building and find a place to park. In the lobby, one of my neighbors is getting his mail. He looks at me funny.
“You going to a 70s theme party or something?” he asks me.
“What? No. Why the hell would you think that?” I ask, annoyed.
“Well, you bleached and feather your hair. Kind of a giveaway,” he answers.
“I did what?” I pull down a lock of my hair and see that it’s white. What. The shit. I dash toward the stairs.
“And those contacts are cool!” I hear my neighbor shout after me.
I sprint up all four flights, fly to my door, thrust my key in, and hurry inside. Steve’s on the couch with his laptop. “There you are! You want to try to explain th- Whoa. What the hell happened to you?”
I rush into the bathroom and look at my reflection over the sink. My hair looks like it’s been lovingly feathered. And it’s white. As white as a cloud. White like I saw in my dream. And my eyes are bright yellow. Holy fuck, something is seriously wrong. So I do the smartest thing I can think of. I scream.
/_‾_‾_‾TO BE
CONTINUED‾_‾_‾_〉
