Metamorphesis

[RoughWriters]

Today, we took three random words and worked them into a metamorphesis.

[Scott]

After a long day of killing, Margerine discovered that her eyes had grown a book. She had seen the mirror of her soul in the lives of those she’d slain. Their final words were written in her pupils. As a teacher, she should feel ashamed of the double life she’d lived, but she didn’t. As she sat down to grade the essays that she’d assigned the words of her victims seemed to mingle with those on the page. A slight dissonance of thought every sentence left her unable to concentrate. Perhaps aloud the words would stay in her. “When rain comes in the. . . OH Stop Please! No! . . . precipitation in the key to the earth’s cycle.” She panted. The words had been deafening and she feared the neighbors would think her affected. Crumbling the essay, she threw it into the wall. “Confound it! The girl will expect a grade.” But she couldn’t bring herself to look at the paper objectively.
Taking the gradebook from her bag, she scrolled down the list: Anadra, Miranda, Xylesis. . . “Miranda.” She started. There was no Miranda in her class. The face of the young woman in the trailer park flashed before her. “Cursed ravings; mad and blasted.” As she sat back she knew there would be no work tonight. The students would just have to go without grades for the time being. Until the words faded from her mind, she could not read. Oh what Joy had been lost to her, for her desire to clean up humanity for her precious students.
She’d had them since grade school. The 1 room schoolhouse sometimes traced birth till marriage. But she’d carefully been herding the students toward the correct path of good ness and morality. Though she knew little of morality, she knew enough ethics to see that they’d be happier if those who oppressed others were stamped out early. Like little Billy and his old habit of pulling young girls hair. She’d pruned that away quickly.

[chelseye]

After a long day of painting, Vincent discovered that his torso had grown into a pair of glasses. His mother had suggested that he take up painting long ago to help his weak eyes and he had taken to the art enthusiastically. He painted all the time, during any free time he was busy with a paintbrush and easle. On the weekends, he could always be found in the extra room of his apartment, busily painting everything from still-life to landscapes, from portraits to abstracts. No one knew what color the walls of his apartment were originally, they had been covered with paintings and any extra space was filled in with random colors depending on the closest paintings. Lately, as his eyes had been growing worse, he took to painting even more. His job was threatening to fire him if he called in again and his mother frequently called, worried that she hadn’t seen him for weeks at a time. The rest of the house was a wreck too since he spent all his time in the painting room. He had frequently been told that he needed to buy a pair of glasses, but he never could bring himself to do so. That would take time and he needed all the time he could get in order to get all his ideas down on canvas. Taking precious hours to go get his eyes checked would be such a waste. So instead, he painted. Unbeknownst to Vincent, his painting was becoming progressively worse. Lines he believed to be sharp were smudged and blurred. Colors blended into ugly shades of putrid brown and smog yellow. His form becoming more and more atrocious. But Vincent had no knowledge of this. Paint continued to fly from his brush at alarming speeds as hours went by. One morning, he literally painted himself into a trance, methodically moving his brush up and down in half-drowsed attempts. He had been awake for 79 hours and four pathetic paintings in various stages of drying stood against the wall. In a vain attempt to see better, he had painted glasses on his face. When that didn’t work, he painted them on his arms, his legs, his feet and hands, and a gigantic pair on his torso. Nothing worked however, and he simply sat, idly flicking the paintbrush up and down, up and down, up and down. It was when he fell off his stool onto the wet paint that he realized something was wrong. Paint stuck to every part of his body, except his torso. In place of the pale skin, glass now occupied two oval shaped areas of his torso. His arms were wires. Not even able to lift the brush, Vincent crumpled to the ground in agony. What was he to do? As his head came into contact with the glass, however, he could see through his torso at the paintings behind him. He gagged at the pathetic paintings that cluttered the wall, until realizing they were his own…

[Sarah]

After a long day of laughing, Alexis discovered that her arm had grown a rock. How could this have happened? What had she done to deserve this? Chewy had been her friend for so long and now . . . he had somehow grown through her arm. What a strange thing to happen, even in the land of Guru. Alexis sighed in frustration. How could she restore her only friend to life again? Chewy may have made odd sounds . . . especially when she would squeeze him, but that was no reason for this atrocity to happen? Chewy was so soft and furry and for some reason carried some kind of shoulder belt. He never would tell her what it was. It was as if it was a secret. Sometimes he acted like he was on a secret mission from some far away place. Most people didn’t understand how she could understand when Chewy talked to her. But Alexis thought it was because no one else was willing to listen to him because he was different. They had become friends almost instantly. Alexis smiled in remembrance of that day. She had kicked him while walking and picked him up to skip across the pond and he had yelled no. She sighed and looked at her arm again, then the tears began to fall. She just knew that Chewy was no longer going to be part of her life. She sat down and let the tears fall. Her friend was gone forever. He was dead and stuck on her arm. She didn’t know what to do. The tears fell on her arm. Suddenly a strange glow came from her arm. It grew brighter and brighter. She tried to shield her eyes from the light but to no avail. All the sudden there was Chewy. Except he looked different. He was less 2D. He looked more like some kind of animal. He ran up to her and hugged her fiercely.
“You broke the curse” he said.
Alexis looked at him in surprise.
“What are you talking about?”
Chewy explained that his home was being overrun by men in black cape like things that breathed funny. They were called Vades. He was the leader of the resistance and they somehow captured him. He thought he might have been betrayed. Upon finding him they cursed him into the rock shape hoping somebody would kill him. But luck was on his side and he was found by Alexis. Alexis wrapped her arms around him. She began to cry.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m, sad Chewy. I’ve only found you again only to lose you. You’ll be leaving me now.”
He wrapped his arms tightly around her
“I will never willingly leave you. You have become my best friend and I want to be with you forever!”
Alexis began to cry again, but this time with tears of joy. Her Chewy had come back and was never going to leave her again. They would be as they once were. Alexis and Chewy. Life would was at it should be. Until. . . Surprise!

[tiffany]

After a long day of thumbing, Greg discovered that his hernia had grown a brick. The man wailed in pain. The hernia was bad enough. Now he not only had an open wound on his kidney but he also had 3 lbs of rectangular, oven-baked mud attached to it. The protrusion in his gut was just appalling. He simply couldn’t understand what had happened. Okay, so maybe drinking a whole bottle of Merlin’s secret mead stash had been a bad idea. But the hernia had been punishment enough. Everyone knows that hernias heal over time. At least, time travelers like Greg knew that. So when Merlin asked who had gotten into his mead, Greg had just ignored the pain and pretended that, like everyone else in Camelot, he had no idea who the guilty party was. Now, however, the brick in his kidney stuck out like a sore thumb. The time traveler laughed as the thought crossed his mind. A sore thumb, huh? That would be better than this. Shoot, being turned into a frog would have been better than this…maybe.

Just then there came a knock on Greg’s chamber door.

“Lord Gregory?”

Crud. That was Sir Lancelot’s voice.

Greg cleared his throat and replied, “Yes? I am here.”

“Are you alright, my lord?”

“Fine, quite fine,” he grunted.

Why did Pinocchio get all the luck? All he had to deal with was a really long nose, no pain involved. They made lying look easy in the movies.

“Are you sure?” Lancelot’s voice queried from the other side of the door.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Greg quipped. “Thank you for your concern.”
The time traveler listened as the sound of footsteps receded from the door. Then there was silence.

With a moan, Greg eased himself back onto his goose-down bed. And people paid money for mattresses like this?

Bang! The door flew open and Merlin appeared before him.

[glen]

After a long, long day of walking through the forest, Congressman Billings discovered that his leg had grown a 2 by 4.
This, to say the least, was embarrassing. He had never been fond of wood, especially 2X4s. And he had just finished speaking to the Foresters of the World United convention the week before. They had invited him to come to this last grove of virgin timber, deep in sequoia National Forest to see for himself what logging was doing to the trees.
And now here he was, walking along a forest path, press photographers behind him, officers from the Foresters of the World United before him, and a stick of wood starts coming out of his leg. How would everyone react? Would he be accused of making a statement by purposely growing a 2X4 on his leg?
Fortunately, the pants he wore today were baggy, so for the first few steps, only he knew what was going on. But as his walk progressed, his stride became more and more wooden. It was only his left leg, mind you. So he would take a normal step with his right, then sort of drag his left leg around to the side and into the front. It was half a limp, half shuffle. He thought back of the black and white Frankenstein movies he used to watch as a child, and could almost hear the words, “Yessss, master,” echoing through the trees.
After a minute or two, he saw that others were watching his strange gait. His face grew red, and his assistant turned to him.
“Is everything all right, sir?”
“I…I think I need to sit down. I have a cramp.”
“Walking in these woods can do that to you if you’re not used to it,” the President of Foresters of the World United said from behind him. “Kinda looks like you have a wooden leg.”
Congressman Billings felt a jolt of fear go through him, and then relaxed and laughed with the others as he realized the man wasn’t using the word “wooden” in the way that he felt it.
The entourage sat with the Congressman, and he heard the Foresters continue to talk about the virgin woods, but the words weren’t sinking in. While they spoke, he was thinking of other things. Does this mean the end of my term as a congressman? Do they let Congressmen serve who have wooden appendages? What will my wife say? Will she even let me bring it to bed?
Finally, Billings realized that the others had stopped talking and was waiting for a response. He looked at the men around him, looked up at the trees, and then back at them and nodded.

[sojourn4]

Words:

Flutter

Philtrum

Staff


“After a long day of fluttering Herbert discovered that his Philtrum had grown a staff; which was unusual for a Friday.” Mr. Provolone turned to his side and said to Vinyl La Van, “would you not agree?” Vinyl nodded his head in agreement. He then said, “There was a bee walking down the street with a blue noise that got tired and sat down on a bench; which was not a bench but a pig. Coney chimed with, “Eh I had a similar situation last month driving my submarine into a daisy with no shoes on but I got to see the Milky Way!”

The bursts open, “All right, grab some sky huds and hold it! Drill the first rat that makes a move.” Mr. Provolone said, “Lieutenant, what a pleasant surprise!”