Work in Progress - Vanessa - Chu and the Creature Part II
Chu feels sudden flu-like symptoms, and his skin is ice cold and excessively dry when he touches it. It is the same as when Delucca stopped talking during their drive to the doctors or to pick up her dog (but there never was any dog in the Small Village van he remembers). He glances at his hands. They look reptilian and oddly purple. They don't look purple now. But he isn't in now, he's in the Small Village van about ten hours ago, and he turns around to find Delucca Dennis asleep. Mystery solved, he thinks. Chu asks what happened to her dog.
"None of your business," she says.
He goes home and takes a nap to sweat out the flu and dreams he has skin the color of rainbows he used to chase when he was a kid. His head is shaped the same way Delucca talked about - puppet-like, but he doesn't know what this creature is. It doesn't look like anything he knows. And when he wakes up and stares in his mirror, it's gone.
There's another party tonight. He gels his hair and thinks about his almost-girlfriend and whether they will have sex at the party or in the van. It's about the only perk left to working there, the director doesn't seem to mind if he returns it late, even though he's never officially asked. He puts extra toothpaste on the brush thinking about the sex, he doesn't see the reptilian face inside his mouth at first, what he sees must be an after image, it's the charger light on the toothbrush that glows neon green, how could there be two tiny lights that look like eyes blinking and at the back of his mouth? This is my last party, he says out loud. He swears off all drugs and alcohol too. But he knows the thing inside doesn't care about his sobriety plans. Chu watches it open its mouth, his face expands. He doesn't know how many bones there are in his face, but he feels he knows where his are now. The whole-body takeover he's read about in science fiction and fantasy books has happened in his bathroom and what remains of his toothbrush is on the floor in tiny pieces.
He remembers his grandmother's vanilla that turned out to be bourbon and reaches for his stash of vodka - and drinks as if it is water.
"None of your business," she says.
He goes home and takes a nap to sweat out the flu and dreams he has skin the color of rainbows he used to chase when he was a kid. His head is shaped the same way Delucca talked about - puppet-like, but he doesn't know what this creature is. It doesn't look like anything he knows. And when he wakes up and stares in his mirror, it's gone.
There's another party tonight. He gels his hair and thinks about his almost-girlfriend and whether they will have sex at the party or in the van. It's about the only perk left to working there, the director doesn't seem to mind if he returns it late, even though he's never officially asked. He puts extra toothpaste on the brush thinking about the sex, he doesn't see the reptilian face inside his mouth at first, what he sees must be an after image, it's the charger light on the toothbrush that glows neon green, how could there be two tiny lights that look like eyes blinking and at the back of his mouth? This is my last party, he says out loud. He swears off all drugs and alcohol too. But he knows the thing inside doesn't care about his sobriety plans. Chu watches it open its mouth, his face expands. He doesn't know how many bones there are in his face, but he feels he knows where his are now. The whole-body takeover he's read about in science fiction and fantasy books has happened in his bathroom and what remains of his toothbrush is on the floor in tiny pieces.
He remembers his grandmother's vanilla that turned out to be bourbon and reaches for his stash of vodka - and drinks as if it is water.
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