A Funny Thing Happened

There was no doubt – my mouth had moved a centimeter to the left overnight.  I check between reflection and picture before accepting the impossible.

 “Hitler, you gotta see this,” I call to my roommate, nicknamed for being the image of Arian perfection – blonde hair, blue eyes (the works).  I find him in his favorite pass-out hiding place – behind the couch under a layer of PBR cans.

“Listen, something funny is happening.  I think I’m turning into one of those weirdies from the X-files!” I give him a shake.

He doesn’t show any response at all, not even his trademark, ‘Fuck off’.  Looks like you reached for the moon and landed on your face last night.  I’d hate to be you in a few hours.

Content my transformation would remain after Hitler wakes up, I head to the kitchen for a breakfast of B12 vitamins before returning to the couch.  I find a fresh nitrous cartridge from the box on the coffee table (‘Whippit good!’ as sage Hitler would say), load it into a brass cracker and give it a healthy twist.  The aluminum seal punctures with a satisfying pop.  Finally, I snap a balloon on the end and gently unscrew the device, filling the latex sphere with precious laughing gas.

Waiting for the air to warm up, I bounce the balloon against Hitler’s sleeping face, “Remind me, I take two vitamins for every lung-full, right?  I don’t wanna get limp-dick.  I like having feeling in my extremities.”  He gives a huge yawn and rolls over on his side.  “Two it is then.”

I always get laughy before partaking in any narcotic, and this time’s no different.  I can hardly control my excitement as I pick the huge balloon off and take in a breath of the sweet-sweet drug.  My vision blurs and all thought takes on a slanted quality.  Our dog Trigger trots in from the hallway which is about the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen.  I laugh and (can it be?) Trigger laughs with me, licking chunks of hair out of my face.

For a brief, awkward moment, I consider French kissing the Golden Retriever when I’m hit with a wave of dizziness.  The room spins before me and I have the nauseating feeling that I’m somehow looking at both the ceiling and floor at the same time.  Trigger sits down and tilts his head, wondering what the silly human is doing.  I look past him and spot the cause of my discomfort in the reflection of our old TV.

My face has changed again.  I raise a hand, too scared to confirm what I’m seeing, but having to know.  I touch my right eye which had slipped down (socket and all) to rest beneath my chin.  The pain that registers when I nudge its wet surface is proof of the awful reality.  My ears too, have gone for a trip around my skull and now reside one on the back of my head, the other on my neck.  Though perhaps most terrifying of all is a new eye which has opened on my cheek.  This one a different color, unlike mine in every way.  And looking; watching me, unblinking.

“Holy fuck, shit!”  I look back at Trigger, but he’s left the room, unimpressed by his master’s situation.

“Hitler!  Hitler, wake up!”  I really go at him this time, alternating between kicking and slapping.  But he’s dead to the world.

A doctor!  I can call a doctor.  There’s gotta be someone else who’s had this (disease?) problem and been fixed.  Even in a shit small- town like this one.

I reach for the phone in my pocket and realize it’s not there.  NO, NO!  Why do I always lose everything?  I consider looking for it, but catch another glimpse of my destroyed face in the hallway mirror (I’ve never been ‘attractive’ and now my face is a fucking rubix cube) and decide to just drive the five minutes to the clinic.  Time is of the essence, as they say.  I pull on my hoodie and set out into the late afternoon air of Linderville.