The Wrong Word in the Right Place
Story by Muskwalker on SoFurry
Imported from SF2 with no description provided.
Even though it was cold today and a gentle snow was coming down thick, I was excited to be out canvassing for the election.
Our ballot measure had started out as a longshot, but ever since the news had started reporting on us our numbers in the opinion polls had been rising. While 'Yes on 18B' was still not quite ahead, we were in striking distance, and the campaign office said that with a strong push this weekend we might be able to get it passed.
And so I was assigned out to the backwater areas of the county trying to round up votes.
I'll admit it was a little hard to convince folks this far from town about the value of supporting the city food bank, but at least they were polite—mostly—and the older generation seemed happy someone my age was trying to make a difference.
The farmhouse in front of me was not a large one, but seemed well-kept—the blue paint looked relatively new—and I waited, pamphlets in hand, while the doorbell played a short chime.
The man who answered the door was embarrassingly large. I don't mean the kind of thickset corn-fed look you get with a lot of folks out in the country—I mean this man towered over me, was at least three times as wide as I was, and his flabby belly hung low enough to obscure his knees.
I didn't realize I was staring until he said “You gonna sit there and bawk all day, or did you have business here?"
“'Bawk'?" The wrong word was jarring. I wanted to ask if he meant 'gawk', but a sharp glance from the man indicated he mightn't take correction lightly. Instead I offered a pamphlet meekly, and he invited me in.
The front room was lightly decorated—dark wooden floors with a fur rug, a pair of oversized armchairs facing the fire; some photos on the mantel, but no TV.
He handed me back my pamphlet. “18B, eh? You gonna tell me this does anything for us out here aside from raising our taxes?"
“Bawk," I said, then stopped short. I had meant to say something about how the city would be buying more from local farms. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Bawk?"
The farmer laughed.
“Bawk bawk…" My mouth refused to cooperate. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a pen, and wrote LOST VOICE, HELP? across the top of one of my pamphlets.
The big man raised an eyebrow when I showed it to him. “Oh, a clever one. Well, the henhouse and the stable are kind of full… let's see if you're strong enough to escape ol' Uncle Boyce's charms."
YOU DID THIS? I wrote.
Boyce grabbed my stack of pamphlets and tossed them into the fireplace. “Enough of that." He loomed over me and my feeling of dread escalated. I was terrified of what might happen next—trapped in a house with a strange man who'd stolen my voice—
He pulled off his shirt.
“Bawk?"
It shouldn't have had the effect on me it did. But the sight of the big man's hanging belly, covered in soft, thick hair—still dark, though his head was already gray—drew my eyes and I couldn't look away. Something about how the whorls of fur spiralled around, centering on that deep navel…
“And you were doing so well. Not even going to try and keep fighting?"
I tried to clear my head, but the spell felt like it was taking a deeper hold—I would have run away, but I felt clumsy in my own body, like my limbs were all wrong for me; instead I ended up sinking to my knees in front of the big man. I couldn't tell, as I looked over my hands, whether my body had been changing into something else… or if it was trying to change back.
I tried to remember why I was here. I was here to gaze at Uncle Boyce's navel, wasn't I? To dream of burying my nose in it— but that didn't sound right, somehow. I tried to remember if I was supposed to have a nose.
“C'mon, boy. Show me you can still communicate."
“Bawk…" Though my attention was fixed on Boyce's gut, the memory came back to me that he'd taken my voice. Except… he hadn't, really, had he? He'd only taken the words.
I held on to that thought and tried again. “Bawk bawk bawk BAAAWK BAAAWK BAAAWK bawk bawk bawk!"
Boyce raised an eyebrow.
I repeated the squawks, and tapped the pattern of dit-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dit-dit-dit out on the floor.
“Ah—an SOS," he said, scratching his beard. “Very good."
No matter what you do to me, I can still call for help, I thought.
“Well, I guess that settles that," he said. “I'm just going to have to change you back."
I felt like a burden had been lifted; like I'd won. He took a step forward, and I inhaled deeply—breathing in the musk of his sweat and beginning to feel a little light-headed as well.
Another step forward. An inch from his navel, his belly was everything I could see. I gazed into that deep tunnel and knew I would want whatever he told me I wanted. I couldn't help but put my nose in and let the smell of him fill me.
“That's what you wanted, isn't it? Do you remember what you were?"
I blinked. Why was that a difficult question? I'd won, and Uncle Boyce was supposed to change me back to normal. But what was normal for me? My mind couldn't find a way to finish the sentence. What am I really? I couldn't even remember my name.
I tried to remember if I was supposed to have a name.
“Bawk…" I mumbled into his belly.
He laughed. “Don't worry, little hen. We'll have you out of that silly human body soon enough."
That's right, I thought, as he started pulling my clothes off me. The hen goes 'bawk', doesn't it? And I go 'bawk' too. Of course that's what I am.
After he'd tossed my clothes in the fireplace he led me through the house and out to the backyard. It was hard to walk on human feet (I did stumble a time or two) and this human body was not built for the cold at all, but it was a blessing to be out in the open air again.
The farmer frowned as he watched me squatting in the snow, as if things weren't going the way he expected.
“Your body's got a lot of resistance, for someone whose mind gave in so quickly. Uncle Boyce is gonna have to talk you through it. Keep your eyes here," he said, tapping his gut as if there were anything else could possibly hold my attention. “Now… tell Uncle Boyce you miss being a chicken."
“Bawk." As I gazed at my farmer's belly I knew it just felt wrong to be anything else.
“Tell Uncle Boyce you miss your soft white feathers."
“Bawk!" I felt an electric tingle across my skin.
“Tell Uncle Boyce you miss those little chicken feet."
“Bawk!" I stretched out my toes in the snow, shivering as feathers sprouted across my body.
“Tell Uncle Boyce you miss those wings and tail of yours."
“Bawk!" I couldn't help but flap my arms as my feet finished changing. My body was starting to feel more and more familiar again.
“Tell Uncle Boyce you miss your proper beak."
“Bawk!" I wanted to be a chicken again. I needed to be a chicken again.
“Tell Uncle Boyce you miss laying eggs for him."
“BAWK!!"
The moment he spoke of eggs I felt an intense sense of purpose rush over me. Eggs are my life—how could I have forgotten?
As I felt the last vestiges of my transformation tingling between my legs, I already felt the urge to lay building up.
I squatted to the ground, feeling the eggs moving inside me as they tried to find their way out; it wasn't long before I felt a familiar pressure at my vent. I pushed hard, breathing deeply as my hole stretched open wider and wider around the snug-fitting egg, till finally it was able to pop out. I lifted my rear off the egg, feeling my vent close back up, and turned to look at what I'd laid.
The egg was bigger than my head, light brown, perfectly shaped—I knew it would make my farmer proud. And if not, well, maybe the next one; I could already feel it coming.
But then he grabbed me by the shoulders and hefted me up under his arm.
“Don't get too comfortable, little hen," Uncle Boyce said. “We've gotta find you a place in the henhouse."
The little chicken coop was packed with other hens—one of them started squawking as soon as it saw Uncle Boyce, some of them started squawking at the first chicken's squawking, and some of them just sat there with a sublime expression that I recognized as the bliss of laying.
He had been right, though; the little space was kind of full. Instead of trying to squeeze me onto one of the crowded ledges, he grabbed the loudest-squawking chicken under his other arm, and set me down in its place.
I felt the need to lay again as the farmer took the struggling chicken outside, muttering something about needing to break it in properly. I settled in between my neighbors and surrendered to the joy of feeling myself stretch open again and again as each new egg pushed out.
Uncle Boyce returned to his seat by the fire and put his feet up on the hearth, getting warm again as he pondered which he should be building first as his livestock continued to increase—a bigger henhouse, a bigger stable, a bigger pigpen—when there was a knock at the door.
A farmer's work is never done.
Two policemen and another young man were at the door.
“That's him, officers. My partner went in with him an hour ago, never came out, and hasn't been answering his phone."
“Come in," Boyce sighed. The cops should know better by now. “I'm sure this is yet another misunderstand_oink_."
The three of them crossed the threshold, looking confused as the wrong word again took hold in the right place. “Oink?" “OINK?"
The realization and the panic set in much faster this time, but Uncle Boyce had already shut the door and blocked their exit.
A bigger pigpen it is.