The body that I find most unnerving is almost certainly that of the Surinam toad.  They have one of the most disturbing methods of caring for their eggs that I have ever seen.  Many frogs and toads deposit and fertilize their clutch of eggs in a discreet location.  In contrast, the Surinam mating process involves sticking the fertilized eggs to the back of the female.  These eggs embed themselves in the mother’s skin over a few days, and remain there as they develop.  Eventually, they emerge from the female’s back as tiny but fully-formed toads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7b4spjXhw

I have trypophobia, which is the fear of/aversion to repeating patterns of holes.  http://trypophobia.net/trypophobia Normally, this does not seriously affect my day-to-day life.  I’m very fortunate in that my symptoms are not as severe as those of other sufferers.  However, there are certain skin conditions (particularly keratosis pilaris) which simultaneously fascinate and disconcert me.  If I notice that someone has repeating spots of this nature,  I find it difficult to pay attention to anything else until one of us leaves the room.

However, cases like those of the Surinam toad are an entirely different matter from a simple skin condition.  What truly horrifies me is when there is something living and moving inside the holes.  When I imagine an invading other in someone’s body, I’m gripped by a compulsion to just get it out.  Get it out NOW.

Metamorphisis

It was just another average morning at the apartment: Getting woken up at nine o'clock while the noisy roommates carelessly rush breakfast so the can make it to their nine-thirty classes.  Though waking up and rubbing my eyes did not feel the same for some reason.  As I got up to walk to the bathroom, I notice looks of horror from my roommates as I walk past them.  "Good morning to you all too..." I say as I walk past their stunning silence.

But once I looked into the bathroom mirror, their looks of horror made sense.  Even I was in shock from what I saw.  It appeared that my face had turned into that of a cat.  "How did this happen? What did I do to deserve this?" I kept wondering to myself.  I also began to question how I was to carry on with my life with such a drastic change happening.

As I walked out to talk to my roommates about what was going on, I got the typical boneheaded response from them, one being "dude, why the hell is your face a cat?".  "I don't know why my face is like this.." I replied. "what am I supposed to do?"  They all looked at each other after I spoke and then one said "dude, you're even talking like a cat now! no way so weird."And at that point is where I just lost it.  Not only was my face that of a completely different species but now I could not even communicate with other human beings.  I decided that I needed to cool down and get away from people so I decided to take a walk. 

Hoping that it would have relieved stress, my walk down Saint Paul Street only reminded me how much of a freak I had actually turned into.  Every person I walked by gave some sort of rude reaction.  People were staring, giving disgusted gestures and even yelling "freak" as I walked timidly and ashamed down the road.  At that point I realized I could no longer belong in such a society where everyone is so picky and only accepting to people who look as they do.   I walked back home and went up to my room, where I locked and trapped the door, where I planned to hide my cat like self for the rest of eternity.

My Metamorphosis

    I wake up. Everything seems normal at first, I drop down from my bed and slowly walk towards the bathroom to take a shower. Something seems different though, but I am unsure of what has changed. I shrug off the thoughts as I get ready to embark for the day. As I am about to leave I realize that my bag is lighter than normal. I inspect the bag and realize that my Magic decks are not there. After searching for some time, I decided to put together a quick deck and roll with it.
    As I wait for the bus to campus, I come across a friend and strike up a conversation. We start talking about the latest roster changes and balance changes to League of Legends. EdWard has rejoined GamI bit Gaming and is the news of the day.
    "So how do you think EdWard rejoining Gambit will effect the EU scene?" Says my friend.
    "I don't know, anything is possible" I reply. "That was odd." I thought, "That isn't something I would normally say, EdWard going back to EU will have a giant effect." I try to say these words and they don't come out.
    "What about the whole Garen vs Renekton discussion last night Dan?" My friend says, trying to move past my obvious ignorance.
    "I don't know, both of those champions are good, I say it's an equal matchup." I retort. "What am I saying, Garen stomps Lizard Wizard in the early game and any good player would be able to snowball that to a lane advantage." My thoughts are unable to come to words. I attribute this to the cold weather and am probably catching an illness.
    Finally reaching campus I find some friends that are playing a game of EDH and I ask to partake, excited to show off the new deck I quickly built. They agree and I revel my general, Isamaru, Hound of Konda. Everyone at the table starts laughing and questioning why I am even playing with them. At this point I realize what I have become. I have become a casual.

My Metamorphosis

It's just another day, there I am laying in bed dreaming peaceful things. But all of a sudden everything vanishes as my alarm clock goes off! The moment I open my eyes, I am looking at this overly obese person in the mirror, that hangs across from my bed... At first I can't believe what I am looking at. So in attempt to resolve the issue, I try to go back to bed. However, I get an itch on my right thigh. Desperately, I try to scratch at it. I soon realize that I have become overly obese! So huge that I can't move my limbs! Not only am I panicing about my self-appearance but the fact that the itch on my right thigh is growing unbearably!

I can't move anywhere. I am simply stationed on my, thankfully, comfortable bed. I lay there with my thoughts. How did this happen? Why me? Will this ever go away? What do I do now? All of these questions were forming in my head and I had a difficult time trying to resolve them. I couldn't reach my laptop or my phone because they were across my room. My last resort would be to call to my roommate, Taylor, to see if he could assist me. So I decided to do that.

I frantically began to yell for him. He stumbled out of his bed in the other room and asked what was wrong. I told him he would not believe what happened... Giggling from the other room, he soon came over and opened my door. Instantly he was overcome by shock. He asked if I was alright and how the hell did this happen. I being a smart-ass, told him I had no clue.

I then told him to grab my phone. He did so. When I had the phone I tried to call my parents at home. However I was so obese I couldn't even move my fingers! I asked Taylor to dial my home. When he did, he put it on "speaker" and tossed it onto my belly. After, he left to go make himself breakfast downstairs.

When my mom picked up the phone. I just blurted out anxiously what I had turned into. She asked if I was on drugs. I replied with a firm "no". I basically told her to come up to Burlington ASAP! After she tried to comfort me, she hung up and I laid in my bed awaiting the arrival of my parents...

While I waited, I thought how could my peaceful dreams on just another day, lead to a dreadful nightmare??? I just hope that if I go back to bed, that the nightmare will go away!

Metamorph: Ferret time

As I toss and turn in my sleep, I slowly become aware of something soft and furry nuzzling my face. Nugget. I slowly blink my eyes open. The little buttmunch is right up in my face so that he looks huge. This is my normal morning routine. Only... Nugget backs away and is still huge. What? I look up and everything about my room is off: the pillow is four times the size of my body, the desk looks like an impossible mountain to climb and my sheets seem to drown me. I reach my hand out, only I can't seem to bring it in front of my face. Huh? I swivel my head around only to find myself staring at my behind. My furry behind. With a tail. I scream  in surprise, only it comes out as a soft squeak. I can't seem to find my words.
Nugget prances back over to me and jumps on top of me excitedly.
"Mom!"
Who in the what now? Who was that?
"MOOOOM. Get up! Let's play!"
Nugget is...talking to me?
I take another look down at my body: long, lanky torso, short hands and feet, and a long straight tail.
I'M A FERRET! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Goddess be praised, I'm a ferret.
I jump and twist in the air, voicing my excitement. Nugget and I bound around my room, bumping into each other, knocking things over and generally being ferrets.
Molly hears the commotion and opens my door.
"Are you freaking kidding me?" Nugget and I laugh before running out the door between her feet. Molly sighs and swears under her breath before chasing after us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a day of funny antics, Molly lays down on her bed and Nugget and I curl up around her, settling down into sweet ferret dreams.

My Metamorphosis

I wake up to the sound of my alarm going off next to my head. I reach out to turn it off, and find that multiple limbs are moving towards the alarm. I freeze, not sure if I am still dreaming and lay for a second while the alarm continues to sound in my ear, staring at what should have been my one, human arm. Instead, dozens of little legs are suspended in front of my face. I lurch sideways out of bed in an attempt to escape whatever creature was suddenly in the room with me. As I roll off my mattress and onto the floor I realize that the creature is moving with me, occupying the same space as me. As I try to stand and escape, flailing my limbs in an attempt to get the creature away from me, I come to the horrifying conclusion that I am the creature.
Even as I come to this understanding I continue to thrash around desperately, refusing to accept the situation. How could this have happened? How is this even possible? I try to yell out, to get someone's attention and hopefully get help, but instead of words all that comes out is a weird clicking noise that I don't understand. This brings me up short, and I stop moving about so that I can fully assess the situation. I'm laying on the floor, and as I try to move myself into an upright position my body does not cooperate. I twist to the side to get a better view of my body and I see dozens of short, hairy legs poking out from a round and segmented body. As I gaze at this new body, my brain tells my legs to move, and the legs on the lower half of the body twitch and wiggle.
As I test the limbs of this new body I hear my roommate, Joyce, coming out of the room next door to mine and knocking on my door. She wonders if I'm alright, she had heard a lot of noise coming from my room. I panic, thinking her reaction to my new form, and try to call out that I'm fine and not to come in, but again the clicking is all that escapes my mouth. She continues to talk to me through the door, saying that she's coming in, and I try to back into the corner, trying and failing to make this impossible body unnoticeable. Joyce doesn't notice me at first, looking towards the bed, but as she looks into the rest of the room her gaze lands on me, and she freezes. After her moment of confusion and hesitation she wheels around and slams the door behind her, screaming to our other roommates about the horrible monster that is in Molly's room.

Metamorphobliss

It’s Wednesday, November 6^th. I wake up slowly; taking my time while every switch inside the cavern of my body turns on and breathes life back into itself. I refuse to remove the pillow from over my eyes and solemnly pray that if I can just stall my body from waking up for long enough I won’t have to face the trials of the day. My second alarm hisses at me to get up, and I allow my indignation to fizzle away because I know that I have to. I sigh a heavy and sunken breath and murmur the golden words that I say to myself every morning: “goddammit.”

I’m suddenly overcome with the abrupt urge to throw up. I remove the pillow from my face and wretch all over the western hemisphere of my bedroom. I feel slow, like molasses dripping through a microscopic hole. I feel weak like a body builder gone flaccid. My head is so empty that it hurts. I feel too lazy and demotivated to pick up my bile.

I look into the mirror near my bed. I stare at myself and realize that something is off. Something is wrong, terribly wrong, and my body is trying to warn me but all it seems to be translating into is vomit.  With every attempted cautionary synapse my brain chemicals send to me, my mind retracts further and further away from the present.

My eyes sink deeper into my head. Drool creeps out of the corners of my mouth and my brain remains wildly vacant.  I scratch my head. All I can think about how is how difficult and useless caring about anything sounds right now.

“Oh my god,” I think to myself. “No, no this can’t be.” I realize that I’ve turned into my worst nightmare: an idiot.

I scan my room. I look at the books, the posters, and the insights written down on the thousands of scraps of paper that I used to pull from every crevice I could. I rip open my notebooks, flip open my laptop, jiggle the mouse to my desktop and scan for something, anything that will spark a thought in my mind, but alas I’m a moron and I give up just around when I begin.

Everything is ugly and boring. The colors are dull, the books are dry, and the walls are stodgy. I know that I used to care about all of these things, but I just can’t seem to remember why.  All I remember is that I had gone to bed the night before dreaming and wishing for simplicity. I decide to give up on my responsibilities for the day and I crawl back into bed. “I don’t need to go to work or school,” I say to myself. “I know everything that I need to know already.” I flip on the TV and melt; ignorance is the ultimate bliss.