The Changeling

THE CHANGELING!  BY JUSTIN BARWICK

At twilight in an isolated stretch of woodland a newborn baby emerged from a rabbit hole, dripping with blood and slime.  As it crawled through the undergrowth it rapidly grew into a three year old toddler, by the time it had reached a nearby road it was a 12 year old boy and when it eventually stumbled across a disused concrete bus shelter it had matured into an 18 year old man.  Shivering with cold it curled up in the foetal position and fell into an uneasy slumber.  In fact it had not been born at all, it was created using ancient faerie magick.  Transformed from an evil imp who had caused no end of trouble for his fellow elves by casting evil spells and curses on them at random depending on its highly unpredictable mood.  In the end five elves had formed a kind of magickal hit squad.  Now that the evil imp had been left to its own devices, who knew what fate held in store for that sinister faerie creature who had been transmogrified into a mere human being, albeit with some very strange occult powers that its five elvish assassins had been unable to entirely remove.

Following a restless night’s sleep the human teenager awoke to find a neat pile of clothes heaped on top of a pair of brand new trainers, which were lying beside it on the rotting wooden bench that it had been forced to call a bed.  Hurriedly getting dressed the teenager sensed that its mortal name was Danny Robinson.  It started walking along the little used country road hoping to thumb a lift somewhere.  Eventually after a walk of about five miles a four wheel drive land rover stopped to offer Danny a lift.  When asked where he wanted to go, Danny simply replied: ‘The nearest town will do me squire.’ 

The nearest town turned out to be a bustling market town called: Nortonby Steeple.  As it happened there was a market being held on that particular day.  Searching through his denim jean pockets Danny found that he had pockets stuffed full of cash!  He bought a meat pie and a couple of sausage rolls before hungrily devouring them in a nearby bus shelter.  It seemed that he was now stuck at the age of 18.  He had not grown any older during the previous night.  When a bus stopped he decided to get on it just to see where it would go.  He asked the driver where the route stopped.  The reply went: ‘You new round here pal?  This particular journey into mystery and wonder winds up at the majestic city of dreams otherwise known as Bristol.  Now find yourself a seat and shut up!  Oh and by the way that’ll be five pounds fifty.’

After handing over the required amount of money Danny found himself a seat on the top deck of the bus and obediently shut up.  The scenery was rather picturesque and Danny found himself yearning for his past life as a rather wicked elf.  He had had the freedom to roam the countryside at will and had possessed an impressive arsenal of magical powers.  Flicking through his highly intelligent brain Danny was astonished to stumble across a powerful spell of teleportation.  He wondered if he could teleport the bus to the place that the bus driver had called Bristol.  Summoning up all his willpower Danny caused the entire bus to be enveloped in a glowing green light.  People began screaming and panicking.  There was a high pitched whistling sound closely followed by a loud bang. 

As the green glow faded away to be replaced by blazing heat, Danny realised that his aim had been rather a long way off what it should have been.  The double decker bus had rematerialised in Times Square, New York City.  His bewildered fellow passengers gawped through the windows in despair.  What on earth could have happened?  Danny sneaked downstairs and left the bus quietly steaming in the near tropical heat of an August day.  He soon found his way to a nearby coffee shop where he purchased a cappuccino drink and a tasty jam doughnut. 

A short while later he decided to explore the vast skyscraper city.  There were a great many shops to browse in.  Danny had always enjoyed the ethereal music of the elvish folk, so when he found a large music shop he decided to buy a few compact disks.  He didn’t know how he knew that that was what they were called, but somehow he did.  Danny eventually chose a classical music album by Schubert, a couple of Bob Dylan albums and four Beatles albums.  Now he had to find something to play them all on.  Luckily enough there happened to be an electrical goods shop nearby.  He found a portable cd player and headphones for nine dollars and ninety nine cents.  His money by the way had all magically changed into US currency during the enchanted bus journey over the Atlantic to New York City.  Danny made his way to Central Park and found a quiet and shady corner to relax in.  He had just drifted off into a peaceful slumber with the funky tones of Lovely Rita filling his earholes when a bulky shadow suddenly blotted out the sun.  It was the bus driver.

‘So this is where I’d find you is it?  Chillin’ out to some funky basslines while I’ve been trying to phone the bloody transport depot back in ENGLAND!’  The driver raised his voice considerably on the last word.  ‘I knew you was behind this here hijacking.  Now I don’t know how you did it and I don’t want to know pal.  But the thing is PAL!’  The driver prodded Danny’s chest with a jabbing forefinger.  ‘It is up to you to get us all safely back to where we come from, do you get me PAL?’ 

When the furious bus driver jabbed Danny in the chest yet again, it filled the teenager with a terrible anger.  He opened his eyes and glared up at his oppressor.  Then he chanted the magickal words: ‘Ikanaziaka kanakazowiksi!’ There was a swirl of sulphporous black smoke, and when it eventually blew away there stood before Danny a drug ravaged teenage prostitute.  She had no memory of her previous life as a bus driver, her new name was Jinx.  She spoke to him in halting english: ‘You virgin?  I tell!  I give mind blowing fuck!  You be pimp!’  So they went and found a cheap motel nearby and shared a sizzling afternoon of passionate lovemaking.  Danny agreed to become Jinx’s pimp. 

They were soon doing a roaring trade.  Whenever a client became excessively violent he would find himself transformed into another drug ravaged teenage prostitute.  In this manner Danny quickly built up a sizeable brothel.  When some rival gangsters stormed his rundown tenement building very late one night, they were astonished to see their powerful handguns transformed into harmless bunches of flowers.  They were even more gobsmacked to find themselves transformed into squealing piglets.

Rumours of black magic and voodoo rites kept the many other rival gangs away from Danny’s popular brothel.  Late one night it was raided by a squad of vice cops.  They were startled to find themselves magickally teleported to the steamy tropical depths of the Brazilian rainforest.  It took them three months to find their way back to the nearest very isolated shanty town.  Half starved and delirious due to contracting an exotic and highly contagious disease, the tiny population of the shanty town didn’t thank them for spreading their toxic illness like wildfire.  Before they were well enough to rise from their stinking beds, still feeling very weak and feverish, they were trussed up, tied to stakes dug into the ground in an open clearing in the nearby jungle and burnt to death.

Meanwhile Danny’s brothel was thriving.  He had his pick of the girls and was always very careful to use a condom.  He knew all about sexually transmitted diseases and was sure that he didn’t want to catch any.  Life flew by in a whirlwind of soaring profits and passionte sex. 

Five years later whilst he was making love to Jinx during the early hours of one particularly stiflingly hot August morning Danny was startled to find the face and body of his partner fading into total blackness, he screamed in terror, thinking that he must have gone blind.  Several terrifying minutes of utter oblivion passed by like chinese water torture, the drip drip drip of the passing seconds seeming like an eternity of nothingness.

Then very gradually Danny became aware of the sound of birdsong.  When he opened his eyes he found that his vision had become very weak and blurry due to cataracts.  Tentatively he felt his face and detected a map of deeply etched wrinkles.  Also he seemed to have lost all his teeth.  How had he become a very old man?  Looking about himself he eventually realised that he was back in the derelict bus shelter deep in the Cornish countryside.  Suddenly Danny felt a crippling pain in his chest, it just kept coming in waves of molten agony.  Then he died.

The elderly body in the derelict bus shelter disintegrated in a cloud of dust.  There were a few moments of complete silence apart from the cheerful birdsong outside.  Then a tiny pair of hands poked out from the mound of dust, closely followed by  the head of the evil elf: Xerxes who had been magickally transformed into a newborn baby just a few hours previously.  A group of elves entered the derelict bus shelter.  They made Xerxes promise to lead a good and honourable life from then on.  Although he swore on his life that he would never again cast an evil or sinister spell, the temptation would occasionally prove too strong to resist.  Whenever this happened he would be severely punished by his fellow elves.  Xerxes was one leopard who would always struggle to change his spots...