Change Day

Eveyln woke up with a bad feeling about today. Friedburg, the town she lived in, was situated in a reality flux and she never knew whether she should even get out of bed some days. She always knew if she could feel it, then it was bad. As usual, she was right.

She turned off the alarm and shuffled into the bathroom. She turned on the light and stared, aghast, in the mirror. "Now, this is just ridiculous!" she said aloud, then sighed. "It could be worse, I guess." She just rolled her eyes and got ready for work.

And, oh yes, it was worse. When she went outside, she saw just how much worse. It had affected everyone, apparently. The street looked like a circus sideshow had laid off all it's employees on the same day.

She saw a large woman with black and white zebra stripes, a man with tusks, and a little girl with what must have been a mouse's tail and ears. They all seemed to be going about their lives as usual.

Eveyln shook her head and decided to go on to work. On the way she saw many more weird and unusual animal traits on her fellow commuters. One she felt especially sorry for was the woman whose neck had grown about four feet long. She couldn't even get on the subway. Eveyln hoped the woman didn't have a long way to go. She would have just gone back to bed if that had been her.

She checked in at the front desk and the man who was sitting there had black spots. He leered at her. She gave him a dirty look and took the elevator to her office. Mike from accounting rode up with her. He had enlarged buck teeth when he smiled at her cautiously.

"Nice day." he said, lisping slightly.

"I suppose." Eveyln said and gave him a crooked smile.

She got off on her floor and sighed as she looked around. It looked like a veritable menagerie.

Linda, the office gossip, had an elephant's trunk, Roger had a toucan's beak. Her boss, Jim, had what looked like bat's wings. She bet it must have been pretty tough for him to get dressed this morning.

Jim had apparently called up Dr Veire from the research department, who was saying, "I believe it's a manifestation of the animal traits we attribute to other peoples' personalities. Whatever other people think of you, those are the traits that manifest. That's the only credible scenario that we in research have at this time." His eyes were large and round behind small spectacles, and when he turned his head it turned a lot further than it should have. "I think it should be gone by tomorrow, just like all of these fluxes are."

"Thank you, Dr. Veire. I appreciate your assistance." Jim said.

Eveyln thought about the people she'd seen today. She groaned to herself. It was like a pun factory exploded. The giraffe neck stuck her neck out for people. Dalmation boy must be a real dog. Linda was nosy. She wondered about zebra-lady. Maybe she had a herd mentality. Evelyn laughed.

"Eve! Good, you're here." Jim exclaimed. He looked at her somewhat appraisingly. "Don't just stand there. I need the report you were working on yesterday."

She went about her day and tried to figure out what animal she was imitating. It hadn't really been obvious to her when she'd looked in the mirror. She had small pointed red ears and white whiskers. It wasn't extreme, she thought. No one really said anything about the animal thing; most were embarrased by it.

She returned home that night and checked her messages. Her boyfriend had called "Hey, foxy. Did you want to go to McTavishes tonight for drinks? I'll be by to pick you up around seven." the machine repeated.

She rolled her eyes and mentally smacked herself in the forehead. She was a fox. Since she never really thought of herself that way it wasn't obvious to her, although it had been to the guys at work. She smiled and thought I guess it wasn't so bad after all.


Word count: 628