Word Count: 300 Max
Genre: Whimsy
Written on: July 1st 2026
Prompt: Transformation Troubles
Unique item: Tablet (device)
During the rift, most people viewed the event outside with disposable glasses. The regulars at the Derry Street Bar, however, watched from the dusty TV as news anchors talked about the once-in-a-millennium cosmic event. Keith had consumed too many beers, so he watched from a tablet balanced on a urinal.
As the planets formed a galactic conga line around the black hole at the center of the galaxy, gravity took a brief break. As Keith started floating, he involuntarily became a fountain of recycled beer. Panicking, he slapped at the graffiti-riddled wall and found his fingers stuck.
His skin turned bright green; his fingers swelled into bulbous clubs, and webbing stretched between them. He tried to yelp, but the sound came out as a wet, warbling pop as his neck inflated into a sack. As quickly as gravity left, it returned, leaving Keith dangling from the wall above the urinal.
“Greg,” Keith shouted in a voice much deeper and raspier than before. “Can you bring me a beer? I find myself stuck in the bathroom.”
Keith heard a ruckus coming from the bar. He heard Anna the bartender screaming, the sound of glasses shattering, and a menagerie of otherworldly roars and hisses. But he kept shouting for Greg.
After the twentieth croak for Greg, the bathroom door sprang open. Anna stood there with a baseball bat, panting and disheveled. She had bright yellow eyes with vertical slits, dark green scales in patches on her skin, and a thick tail lashing behind her.
“Can I still get a beer?” Keith asked, waving his free hand.
“…roughly 20% of the world’s population has turned,” the tablet chimed.
“You’re going to have to wait, Keith,” Anna said, lowering the bat. “And clean up your piss.”
**