Haphephobia

Chapter 3

I guess you might be thinking that a person might be a little shocked to look down at their bodies and discover that they have just transformed into a very large and fuzzy sea lion. You would be right. In fact, 'a little shocked' is what I might call the understatement of the century- I was hysterical.

Upon the very sudden and horrible realization that I was now in fact a semi aquatic, seven-foot-long sea mammal, I, of course, uttered several rather necessary screams. Much to my disdain at the time, however, what I wanted to come out as screams ended up sounding more like very loud and very stupid groans. I sounded like a hungry fat man reaching for a burrito that was only an inch from his round fingers.

Take it easy, dude. Just calm down for a sec, kay? I know this is totally wild, but you gotta calm down, or else nobody can help you...

I heard a female voice somewhere obscenely close. Looking wildly around with noticeably different and worse vision even than my own, I couldn't tell where the voice had come from. The closest female person was busily rinsing medical equipment twenty feet away from me. So where had that voice come from? It was far too loud to have been that woman...

You're not going to be able to see me from this room, dude. I'm outside in the hallway. I'm in your head.

I thought I had suddenly gone far off the deep end then, or else my sea lion brain had been exposed to a little more sea water than it could handle while keeping its sanity. Did all sea lions have weird yet oddly chill female voices in their heads? I was dumbstruck. Why was my female voice telling me it was in the hallway? Have I always been this scatterbrained?

Dude! Really? It's been, what, like, five minutes? I'm reading your mind! God, just look at the doorway, I'm right here!

Without even thinking about it, my obnoxiously large sea lion eyes turned towards the now open door. In it stood a very cross-looking, obviously teenaged girl. I glared at her, wetness clouding my vision. Of all things to have randomly become, it had to be a wet, gloppy sea lion.

The true fact of the situation had suddenly dawned on me, and I realized everything that had happened so far. I get a kick in the pants, I think I'm a fox, I pass out, I wake up in a government facility, and then I'm a gigantic, fat sea animal. And if it wasn't bad enough, I also had an easily irritable female reading my mind! Talk about lack of personal space! I couldn't believe it- this was comic book stuff. And by that, I mean, stuff that should only happen in comic books. So why was this happening to me, right here, right now? Me, for God's sake?

Yeah, yeah. You realized you're a freak. Welcome to the club- and I mean that seriously; there's a real club full of weirdos like you. Now for the love of God, will you please calm down for one second?

I uttered another barking groan, much to my chagrin. I was literally struck for words- even in my own head; even if I had any words, I couldn't have said them out loud. How long had I been a sea lion now, anyways? Was I doomed to eternal sea-lion-dom?

Suddenly, I became aware of the shortness of my limbs. What was once my entire set of legs were now two short, floppy tail parts. What were minutes ago my arms had been reduced to a pair of fins. Each of these were less than a foot long.

But with reduced limbs came a new sense of freedom: where I had previously been velcro'd to the table, I was now free to move around to my heart's content. All I could think of was escape: I was ready to go; I was-

Ouch.

It isn't recommended to any viewing audiences out there to try squirming off a medical table if you are a seven foot long, several hundred pound sea lion. Remember gravity, kids: falling hurts. A lot.