Seasonings (standard:fantasy, 705 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Apr 29 2009	Views/Reads: 3019/1868	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Watch what you eat. Go easy on those herbs and spices. You may not want to share Marc's nightmare. Maybe you do.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

Not long after the dream, Marc began to feel his shirts getting tighter
every week.  His clavicles were bulging, threatening to rip through the 
back of his shirt.  He felt trapped. Living up to his company's dress 
code was becoming an ordeal. 

Mark also felt his arms getting stronger every day. He seemed to be
always hungry. It felt like the spirit of a  starving bird. Half a 
roast chicken at lunchtime left him with a craving for wild 
cranberries, the staple diet for turkeys! Marc reached for more jellied 
cranberry sauce. 

By October, his wing-bones were tearing through his shirt collar.  His
arms had grown embarrassingly long. Even his hands seemed to be 
stretching out, finger by finger.  His hair was becoming feathery, too. 
And his nails had grown long.  Very long. 

Oh, he could still get away without notice at the  supermarket.  Marc
began doing his best to lose weight.  He informed his manager at work 
that he needed time off, to get back in shape. Every day he fought 
against his hunger, trying to lose weight. Television got boring, so he 
spent his days exercising at the gym.  He found the TV screen "too 
flat" and felt a craving for real three-dimensional perspective. 

Marc spent a lot of time looking out the window, getting hungry every
time prey flew into his hunting zone.  Those massive pinions where his 
elbows used to be: he felt good about them.  Hungry, he felt good about 
them.  It was a thrill beyond description when he hopped onto the 
windowsill and flapped and flapped and swooped down, flapping like 
crazy. Marc gracefully flipped out of it, soaring, wheeling, gliding on 
the isobars.  Kyeow, he was hungry.  Kyeow! 

Inviting crevices and niches flashed beneath him.  Did something move
there?  Right, something moved.  Look it over again.  One more time.  
That's it, that's it -- about one good mouthful.  Let's see, over this 
way behind the rock, low like that; now speed up and over, hit the 
airbrakes, CHOMP!  Pull!  Hard!  Up, up and awaaaaaay!  Mmmmmmm! that 
tastes delicious.  Marc wished he had those seasonings right now!  What 
tasty, crunchy little bones and feathers. Mmmmmm, Mmmmmm, good! 

*  *  * 

Seattle, November 12, 2008 - Gerald X. Diamond - All rights reserved 


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