The meeting

The hour of the appointment came near and I became very nervous. I could hardly concentrate on my work. I repeatedly had to ask my customers to explain everything again because I lost track of their reasoning. Time was slowing down to a snail’s pace and speeded up to a rush the moment I left the office. Anticipation was overflowing my system with adrenaline. This was the moment where giving me a scare could have let to sever consequences. Luckily there were no jokers around.

I arrived at the bookstore annex coffee shop five minutes late as instructed, thanks to twenty minutes fidgeting in my car. My nerves were playing a piano concerto. When I entered the store, I thought it was a good idea to check my burner.

“T stay away”, it read and was sent about 15 minutes ago. Bang. Full panic mode again. I guess the “T” was a fast abbreviation for “Tom” so I presumed this was authentic. “Why didn’t I check this phone before?”, I thought. Indecisively, I continued walking inside the store. I decided to act as normal as possible and went to the clerk.

“Hi! Can I use the bathroom? I really need to… I’ll buy something afterwards if needed.” I told him.

The clerk judged me and grabbed key from beneath the counter with a small sigh and motioned to the back of the store. He told me it was a service on the house and that I didn’t need to buy anything. I immediately walked to the back of the store. I passed the coffee corner and saw Mr Stevens sitting at a table, really pale looking. One guy was sitting across him and another was sitting at a table nearby keeping him under close watch. The guy in front of Mr Stevens was wearing slightly tainted sunglasses even when he was indoors. The one at the table nearby, had his hair on his head evacuated to his chin. Successfully. That was one hell of a beard!

I walked passed without flinching. The bearded one, diverted his eyes very briefly to me, but since I didn’t pay them any attention, he returned his stare to his original target. Internally my mind was screaming behind bars “let me out now!” “run!” “I didn’t do it” “I know nothing” but luckily my legs just carried me to the toilet.

In the toilet I sat down and I instantly started crying from the tension. Crying? When did I turn into a cry-baby? My arm felt really funny. When I examined it, I saw something I impossible to believe at first. My arm was shorter and my hand was smaller and more slender than it should be.

What? Wait?! Let’s take another look and try to use a more scientific method then first impression. I pressed my back against the toilet. Gross! I know! But it was inspiration of the moment without thinking about the germs or unspeakable things my back would possible be touching. I stretched my arms as far as possible and the fingertips of my left arm touched the door and my right arm came short about a half a hand’s length.

What? Wait?! This isn’t possible. I shifted my shoulders, turned a little, measured again, all the time refusing to believe what I was seeing. I put my two hand palms together and evidently, one hand was larger than the other with about a phalange length. Sweat drops were flowing from my forehead now. This isn’t possible. I repeat, this is NOT possible. I felt weird, like I was going to faint and my mind just went blanc when confronted with the repeated evidence. The culprit was clear, the vial, but the how and the why had no possible answers for me.

After a few minutes, I left the toiler and washed my face with cold water. I kept staring at my right hand. My nails were long. I compared them with the nails of my left hand and they were the exact size. That’s one thing that didn’t change. They are just long because my fingers are shorter on my right hand. Strange. My thoughts went back to the guys in the coffee corner and I knew I had to get out of here. I steeled my back, put my “little hand” in my pocket and exited the toilet area.

When I reached the store, it only had two grandma’s browsing the shelves and the clerk who was reading a book himself. Since the coffee corner was deserted I looked to the books near the table where the cookie-man was seated some minutes ago with his two admirers. I looked at the books on the shelf next to the table and found a cell phone behind the books. This is quickly getting out of hand… little hand, big hand? My mind was making fun of me in this absurd situation. I resisted the urge to get my little hand out of my pocket to examine it again.

After some consideration I took the cell phone. I got out my burner and texted a reply: “Who are you?”. The phone in front of me buzzed a few seconds after pressing the sent. Ok, I can’t let this phone fall in the wrong hands. This was quite clever and quite the gamble that guy took, to hide his phone here. I powered down the phone, removed the battery and the sim card, and put it all in the pocket of my vest. Left pocket. The right pocket was already a bit occupied. These actions were not as smooth as it should have been since I desperately tried not to use my right hand. Which failed of course, I was right-handed after all. But I blocked the view from everyone, also known as ‘the clerk’, while using my right hand.

After that, I took the first book I could take in front of me and went to the counter with some cash already in my left hand ready. The clerk looked at me smilingly while accepting the book on … knitting. I instantly facepalmed myself in my mind.

“Why? Why must even the most simple action have a bizarre twist today.” I thought.

I smiled back like everything was peachy and like it was perfectly normal for a man with one short arm to buy a book on knitting. I returned the key, paid, thanked again for the use of the toilet and left the store. I made sure to visit two more stores just to throw of any possible lookouts. I’m now in proud possession of a small fertility statue and two new pair of socks on top of my book on knitting.

While I went back home, I tried to come up with methods to hide my right hand and arm from Shana and Mark. I came up empty of course. In my mind, my arm and hand were already shrunk to baby size and I heard the hordes of people falling down laughing when viewing my now silly appearance. The only workable idea was too silly and unfeasible: put my arm in a cast as if it was broken. It would work but I had no idea how to convince anyone to do this and if I would succeed doing that, it was going to impact my functioning even more than hiding my hand.

“Oh lol. I’m going to hide this at work too… Which is doable as long as I don’t have lunch, breaks or meetings with my colleagues.”

I decided to play the innocent card at home. Wear a long sleeved sweater and pretend nothing is out of the ordinary. And if they ask for it, I would explain them my hand just shrunk. Which is just what happened. If I was lucky, they wouldn’t think it through if I played it out as just something that happens normally with people from time to time. I hope. Geez, if they buy this, I have one set of extremely naïve kids.

I’d like to say I masterfully pulled this off. That I did great and successfully hid all things abnormal. But that wasn’t true. What actual happened was, when I arrived home and took the nail clipper, my arm and hand were back to their old self. Like nothing happened. I had another ‘comparison run’ and disbelieve session. But in the end, it just started to feel unreal. I must have imagined everything in the store. That vial must have contained some strange hallucinogen. This was the only possible explanation. But then again, I still had that phone with me. I hid it between some old cloths of Shana that were too small for her now. Nobody would think of searching for a phone there. Especially not since there was hardly anything tying it me to it.

The next weeks passed uneventfully but filled with personal anxiety.

The panic attack

Ding dong! Someone was at the front door. My bell actually more sounded like you hit a broken gong and it was annoying me as long as I rented this house. Since the house wasn’t mine, I didn’t bother to change it. I just kept the message – visitors! – and ignored the awful sound. I dropped my towel and set the bowl I was washing back on the sink. I opened the door for two men in their mid-twenties. They were neutral dressed, clean shaved and excluded a friendly vibe.

“Good morning, sir.” “We would like to ask you a few questions. Can we come in?”, the tallest asked smilingly. He looked at me with expecting, piercing grey eyes.

“I’d rather not let you in. My house is a bit of a mess and my children are resting a bit in the living room. If you want to ask something, please do it here. And, just to avoid misunderstanding, I’m not interested in buying products or attempts to change my beliefs.” I replied with a slight uneasy shiver.

Somewhere in my emotional centre, all sort of alarm signals were generated. It was weird since I couldn’t discern any reason for distress, except for the foolishness that happened with the vial.

“That’s a bit inconvenient but we respect your wish.”, he replied smoothly. “Did you visit the dentist in town in the Regent street on Thursday about a month ago?”, he said dropping a bomb on me.

I blinked a few times, my heart instantly racing, and immediately started convincing myself that there are no leads to me. It did nothing wrong, even I can’t really say nothing happened. I mentally took a deep breath and answered.

“Yes, I think I had an appointment that day. Is there something wrong?”

“No, not really, but we are looking for a man with about your height and hair style and colour. He goes by the name John Cawry. Do you know him? And if you do, do you know where we can find him?”

This was not just a bomb but more likely a bombardment. It’s quite clear where the information is coming from. It’s from the nice professor that got me involved against my will. Are they affiliated with him or are they affiliated with the ones who violently forced him on a ride to an unknown destination. I think I’m having a heart attack. Are those the good guys, the bad guys or something in between?

I turned on the burner phone once every two days on various places in town to check for messages, but it was completely silent. So they were unrelated to Mr Stevens who tried to meet me in the book store. Mr Stevens only knew me as “Tom”. I think playing dumb will be the best course of action. If I can pull it off.

“I never heard that name before.”, I replied while keeping my body completely still. “Should I know him?”, I asked purposely completely ignoring the part on the similar physical treats.

“We don’t know.” “From our information, Mr Cawry should have gone to the dentist around the same time as you but we couldn’t find an appointment for him in agenda. We are now checking all the patients from Thursday afternoon.”

“Ok, but I fail to understand what it has to do with me.”, I replied.

“We have two facts making you very interesting, Mr Murray. For one, you are the only one on the dentist agenda even remotely matching the physical profile. Secondly, you just happened to show up on the spot where we intercepting a person of interest to us. For that second part, we know it was you because you were caught on camera and we have your picture.”

He look at me, giving me time to react to his statements and suggestions. I was legit scared now. Really scared. I started to feel that strange and numb feeling from a few weeks ago. This time on my entire body. I was visibly shook up by now. There was no hiding it. I was holding on to some small sliver of ratio and the mantra: “they know nothing, they know nothing…”

“Sorry, but I still fail to understand what this has to do with me. I don’t know why this person you are asking about, told he had a dentist appointment that got me mixed up with him and I fail to remember ever having you seen before. Where did we meet?”

“The picture is from the surveillance camera at the entrance of a bookstore in the centre of town.”

“I only went into that bookstore because I needed to go to the bathroom and afterwards I bought a book on knitting, because my daughter had a woollen pull-over that needed repair and I know nothing about knitting.”, I rambled. “I also visited some more shops that day.” “And I still don’t know what you are trying to accuse me off and what is wrong with going to the dentist. What do you want from me?”

The one with brown hair and chiselled features held up his hands. “You are not in danger, yet. We are tasked to retrieve something extremely import and everything points to you having it. We really want it back. If you do have it, now it is the time to give it to us.”

“Sir, I have no idea what you hope to find here. I have no clue what you are looking for. I can see what reasoning lead you to my door but I have nothing I can give you.”, I replied shakingly and extremely happy I didn’t invite them in. This was literally the truth, except that I very much knew what they were looking for. The vial was busted and the only remaining wisps of its content were in my body doing who knows what. Speaking of which, the numbness was intensifying as we speak.

“Mr Murray, we will keep an eye on you and you better not be lying. You might be endangering your family if you do.”, he threatened.

“Sir, I want to help you, but I don’t know how. And I don’t respond well to threats. I suggest this conversation is over before I call for help. You might not have noticed but my bell has a camera and all the footage is constantly transferred to a cloud storage. So if I or my children get injured, you are recorded, including sound.”

The shortest interrogator shot a glance at his partner and intervened. “Mr Murray, I would like to apologize for the tone my partner used. We are under a lot of stress ourselves and running out of leads. I hope you will call us, if, by accident, you come across something that might help us or if you get more visitors like us.” “Here you have a card where you can reach us. You can do so 24/7.”

“Heed the words of my partner or there will be consequences.”, the tall one said while trying to pierce me with his eyes.

I nodded and I balled my fists in the pockets of my hoodie. “Who do they think they are? We have rights in this country.”, I thought as I felt my nails cut into the palms of my hand. Nails?!? Oh my god, it was happening again and this time both of my hands. I quickly said goodbyes, stammered a good luck on your search and slammed the door shut. I now had trouble determining what was scaring me the most: those goons or my own body. The shorty did his best to sooth things over, but the threat remained very clear.

I really hope they didn’t see changes on my while we were talking. I tried to rush to the bathroom but tripped up halfway. Some very quick reflexes – I didn’t know I had in me – saved me from face planting. Instead, I kind of crouched while falling and rolled over my shoulder in the small hallway without touching anything. Before I knew, I was standing straight again. I stopped, completely surprised.

I tripped over the leg ends of my jeans… This was getting way too weird. I changed course to my bedroom. I had a full body mirror over there, a reminder of the time I was still married. I can’t remember when I last stood before that mirror but this moment I really needed a peek. I had to assess the damage. The numbness had changed to an agitated warmth that was spreading throughout my body and morphed into a comfortable, normal feeling.

When I entered the room, I already noticed that everything was a bit bigger. The dead giveaway was that I missed the handle when trying to open the bedroom door. I grabbed to low. I was seriously tripping. My mind was a mumbo-jumbo of incoherent thoughts. I slowed down when approaching the mirror, scared of what I was going to see.

The one silent look I took lasted for about 10 seconds and then I fainted. Everything just went blank. I have no idea for how long. But I got woken up by Shana.

She asked: “Who are you?”

I stared back unresponsive.

“What are you doing in my daddies bedroom and why are you wearing his clothes?”, she continued.

I tried to utter a response but failed to form words. Then she went in for the kill.

“Are you his new girlfriend?”, she finished.

On that note, I fainted again.