COMPLICATIONS
                           by Jason Rodencal
 
 

     Some people say that their life is only a never-ending struggle.  They
would laugh if the story of how my life was turned upside-down in one day was
ever told to them.  Why you ask?  Because they don't have to deal with the fact
that they aren't even human anymore, such as myself.  Hi, my name is Justin
Kavin, but nowadays I'm better know as "fuzzy," "stinky," or some other equally
humiliating nick-name, and I was a normal member of the human race.  That was,
until I decided to tour Seir-tech engineering facilities with some of my
friends.

DAY ONE, MON.

     I remember it all so clearly:  The engineering college I was attending had a
yearly deal with Seir-tech, named after Johan Seir, founder and engineering
genius, to allow college students to tour the grounds.  I, my friends, Mike
Jefferson, Chris Farlins, and my apartment roommate, Crash (and no, no one knows
his true name.  It's seems he got the name from his frequent accidents with
other people's cars) were somehow roped into touring the biological building,
even though we had no real reason to.  So, picture this if you will... the four
of us, stuck in a lab and bored out of our minds, along with some lab guy that
was obviously not happy about giving the tour and was doing his best to share
the pleasure.  Somewhere along the line we wound up in a large room filled with
the standard assortment of glass jars, beakers, and whatnots.

"This is the testing lab where we test organic materials made by us or that have
been shipped in," the guide announced in a flat, monotone voice.

Mike commented under his breath, "whoopy-doo," and moved his index-finger in a
circular motion.

"This bites," I said to myself.

"What?" asked Chris.

"Nothing..."

     Right then all would have been fine with the world and myself, if Chris
hadn't done what he did next.  From behind, Chris bumped me just enough to make
me loose my balance and have to take a step forward.  No big deal one would say,
unfortunately, there was this cable in the way...  Well, as luck would have it,
my left foot caught it perfectly and sent me flailing into a table.  Upon
impact, a number of vials and containers were broken, from which most of the
contents, not to mention the glass, ended up either in or on my arms and face
(the only comfort here is that it was more of the first than the latter.)  My
friends say that the scream that came from me could have froze water, I'll never
know...  I blanked out from the pain almost instantly.

     I awoke sometime later to the feeling of something cool being pressed
against my head.

"Ooohhh.....what happened...?"

The nurse stopped wiping my brow with a damp cloth and set it aside in a small
bowl.  "You had a nasty accident in the lab.  You got lucky in that none of the
broken glass that went into you hit any major veins."

I opened my eyes and was greeted by the nurse's smile and unnaturally blond
hair.
"Just how bad was it?"

"The doctor pulled out at least 30 or so pieces."

"No wonder I hurt so much..."

For the first time, I took a look at myself.  Most of my lower arms were wrapped
in gauze, as was a good bit of my upper left arm and shoulder.  A small gauze
patch was also on my left cheek.

"Uh..., just out of curiosity, do they know just what was in those jars?"

The nurse pulled a notepad from beneath the examination table I was lying on.

"From the way this reads, most of the compounds were organic substances sent in
for examination, except for one vial."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"What was in the vial?"  I was beginning to feel that she might have been a
natural blond with the way the conversation was not going well.

"It was some type of blood sample.  There's no listing as to what it was."

I groaned, not from as much as the pain I felt, but from the damned red tape
companies used to keep things in the dark.  "Any way to find out what type it
was?"

"I doubt it, you were not to even suppose to know this much.  Most of the vials
were listed as 'classified,' if a listing even existed."

A little voice inside told me that not knowing the contents would probably come
back to haunt me in some way, shape, or form.

     Just then, the doctor made his first entrance into the room.  His tall,
thin body, crew-cut, and sharp face didn't help me to feel any easier about the
whole situation.  My anxiety must have show, because the doctor just smiled at
me.

"Ah, Mr...," a brief pause as he look at his chart, "Kavin.  It's good to see
that you're up and about already.  Anyways, it's good news, bad news time.  The
bad is that some of the compounds did enter your blood-stream and may cause some
problems with your immune system for a short time, especially the white
blood-cells."

"Well, that's just a joy to know."

"But, the good is that all you should feel is that you've come down with a case
of the flu while the stuff works it's way out of your system.  By the end of
this week you should be fine.  But, if something doesn't seem right, this is my
number." The doctor handed me a small business card, on it was 'Dr. Guy Harvard,
PhD' and a phone number.  "Feel free to call, especially if any side-affects
show up."

I wasn't too thrilled with the last line he said.

"Uh...thanks."  I mentally added "I think" to the end of the sentence.

"I see no reason why you should stay, so be off with you."

With a pat on the back, the doctor sent me merrily on my way to the end of my
life as I knew it.

DAY TWO, TUE.

     I awoke in the middle of the night, totaly soaked in sweat. I felt like I
was being slowly roasted over a fire with someone playing the congo drums on my
brain.  If this was the doctor's idea of what the flu was, I'd hate to have a
simple cold.  Reaching over, I picked up my clock from the nightstand.  2 AM
stared back at me from the readout.  With a groan, I slowly made my way to the
bathroom.  By the way, did I mention how badly my whole body felt?  Anyways,
after poping a couple of aspirins, I stared at the reflection in the mirror.
Just a tired, sweaty face stared back.  "Some cold water should help me feel
better," I thought to myself.  The coolness of the water felt really good
against my face, but I noticed a strange feeling in my hands after resting my
face in them for a few moments.  "Funny, I don't remember having calluses on the
tips of my fingers..."  Every one of my fingers had a circle of skin that was
like a callus, only they had a firm softness to it, not the typical toughness
that was normally found.  I also noticed that the calluses I knew about on my
palms had soften too, and spread outward onto one large ribbon across the top.
The strangest thing, though, was that I could have sworn my hands seemed to be
smaller and fatter, especially the fingers.  "It's just me," I thought to my
self, and dissmissed the whole thing on account of how I was feeling at the
time.  With another groan, I got back in bed and tried to catch a few more Z's.

      With a jolt, I came out of a deep sleep that I could have sworn had lasted
well into the afternoon.  My clock told a different story.  If it was to be
believed, the time was only 8:30.  "This is not a great way to start the day."
Again, I was soaked in sweat, as was my bed.  A cool shower seemed to be the
best thing right at that moment.  As I lathered shampoo into my hair, the weird
feelings in my hands came back.  Looking at them, I noticed that the calluses on
the fingers had enlareged to cover the entire tip, as had the callus strips on
my palms seemed to have widened.  I wasn't to sure of what it could mean, if it
ment anything at all.  After blow-drying my hair and the bandages on my arms, I
got dressed in only my favorite pair of blue shorts, underwear, and some socks.
From there, I headed down into the kitchen.  Crash was already up and eating
breakfast when I walked in.

"It's alive!, bearly.  Damn, you look like death warmed over,"  he commented.

"I feel that way, too.  Where's the OJ?"

My throat felt like it was in a four-alarm fire.

"Right here."

Three glasses did nothing to quench my thirst as Crash stared in amazement at
how fast I was putting away each glass of juice
.
"And the doctor said this was normal?" Crash asked.

"He said that the next few days would be rough."

I sat heavily into the other chair at the table and sighed.  The next few
minutes were silent, until Crash noticed something.

"Hey, Jus, did you put on that sunscreen right when we went to the beach last
weekend?"

"Why do you ask?"

"The tip of your nose, it seems to be darker than the rest."

"Wha....?"

I went into the entrance hall and looked into a hanging mirror that was on the
left wall.  He was right, the tip was a darker shade of tan .  "Now doesn't that
just beat all."  I walked back to the kitchen and sat down again.  My energy
level felt as if it had hit rock bottom and was ready to run out any second now.
 My head rested on the back of the chair as I stared out into space.  The sound
of Crash's voice brought me back to reality.

"You shouldn't be tired after the deep sleep you were in last night.  I could
hear you through two doors and the hallway."

"I was that loud!?!  Better yet, I was snoring!?!"  I asked in amazement, since
I normally didn't snore at all.

"Loud enough to be registered by the seismology building."

I wasn't amused at his joke, so I turned the conversation back to my nose.

"I would have thought that my hat would have covered all of my nose."

"That is a bit strange isn't it?"

Crash finished his bowl of cereal and moved to put it in the dishwasher.

"Listen, Jus, I've got to go to class now, so don't you go and die on me or
something while I'm gone.  You've got my pager number right, just in case?"

"Yes...," I struggled out, not really wanting to spend the energy needed to even
speak.

"I'll be by later to see how you're doing."

Crash picked up his books and left, completly oblivious to the fact that I had
fallen asleep in the chair before he had even finished his last sentence.

     As I laid there unconscious, the strangest dream played out in my mind.  I
was running through some forest, close to the ground, like I was on four legs
instead of upright.  Behind me was the sound of a person shouting and running, I
presumed, after me.  Then suddenly, everything spun in every direction as a net
scooped me up into a tree.  As I laid there on my back, helpless, a field
researcher, well that's what he appeared to be from the look of his clothes,
approached.

"My, aren't we a tricky little devil to track down," he finally said after
catching his breath.

"Let me go!  You can't do this to me," I screamed at him.

"Already capable of speach and rational thought, this is a welcomed surprise!"

"Huh?  Just what do you mean by 'already capable'?  Will you get me out of this
thing!"

"Why would I want to do that?  You're my ticket to fame my furry little friend,
the first animal able to do human capabilities such as speech, rational thought,
and comprehention."

With that, the guy pointed a dart gun at me and pulled the trigger.  I awoke
violently just as the dart hit me in the chest.

     It took me a few moments to realize that I was in the kitchen, not some
forest.  "Damn, what a strange dream," I said to myself.  I then noticed the
little pool of spittle on the table that was in the perfect shape of the Liberty
bell, right down to the crack at the base.  "Eeww..."  As I cleaned up the
table, I thought more about the dream.  The more I dwelled on it, the more it
felt like it seemed to be a replay of a very bad memory rather than some wild
fantasy.  But from what?  The creature the blood sample was from?  It certiantly
wasn't one of mine.  Well, what ever it was, it counted in my book as totally
strange, as did the itching of my arms and left shoulder under the bandages.
That was the last straw.  I decided to call up Dr. Harvard and get an
appointment made for as soon as possible.  By chance, I happened to look into
the hall mirror as I passed it to go upstairs.  The tip of my nose had darkened
even more from a tan to a black/tan mixture.  My eyes became as wide as saucers
at the sight.  "OH, MY GOD!!!!" I yelled as I flew up the stairs to my room and
proceeded to tear it apart looking for that buisness card.  "Where is it, where
is it!?!?!" I kept repeating to myself, searching every nook and cranny, untill
I found it lying under my desk. I immediately placed the call.

"Seir-tech main office, how may I help you?" asked some operator on the other
end of the phone.

"Dr. Harvard's office, please."

"Whom shall I tell him is calling?"

"Justin Kavin."

"Ah, yes. He asked if that you called to be immediately informed.  One moment,
please."

I could hear the call being rerouted through the switchboard.  After only one
ring, someone answered.

"Dr. Harvard."

"This is Justin Kavin.  I need to see you as soon as possible."

"That may not be untill tomorrow, some engineers are performing a dangerous
project involving radiation that I have to oversee for safety reasons.  Why,
what's wrong?"

"Some of my skin has changed color to a shade of black and strange calluses have
formed on my hands and who knows where else, also I'm running a high fever and
have a very sore thoat that no medicine I have can even begin to touch."

"Hmmm...  the earliest I can get you in here is 8:00.  I'll notify the guards to
let you in."

"Dr., my friend Crash may be driving me up, because I just don't feel I could
handle a car in my shape."

"That will be fine.  I must go, they're starting the experiment now."

The phone went dead with a click.  I put down the receiver and laid down on my
bed. My arms began to itch again, worse than ever.  After a huge effort on my
part, all was calm.  "They must just be irritated by the wraps," I thought to
myself.  I really didn't want to think about the fact that it might have been
something else causing it right then, so I dropped the thought from my head
right there and then.  The front door opened and a voice called out "Yo, Jus!
You here?"  I looked at my clock and it said 4:30.  Half the day had sliped away
while slept on the table.

"I'm up here, Crash."

Crash came up the stairs and entered my room.

"How are you feeln', man."

"Like Hell itself."

It was then that Crash noticed my nose.

"Dude! Your nose!"

"Yea, I already know about that.  Listen, I got an appointment with the doctor
at Seir-tech tomorrow. Can you give me a lift over there at 8?"

"Concider it done.  Have you eaten anything today?"

"I haven't been awake long enough to even sneeze."

"Well get your butt downstairs and I'll whip us up something."

     I guess this is a good time to mention that Crash is studing to be a master
chef along with engineering.  The things he can do with a few simple items is
amazing.  Well at least to me, anyways.  True to his cooking nature, he raided
the fridge and began to go balistic with the food.  Within a couple of hours,
Crash  had created a wonderful chicken `a la king.

"You know, you never cease to astound me with the way you have with food," I
said after finishing the last of my meal.

"It's just a thing I do and do well.  Wish I could say the same thing about
physics."

"Hear, hear!"

The physics class that we were both a part of  happened to be one of the worse
to even think about passings because the whole course depended on only two
tests.  Both of us had bearly squeaked by the first with a bottomline 'C.'  Come
to think of it, that was just only last friday, too.  To be truthful though,  we
were lucky, a good 3/4 of the class had bombed and bombed big time.

     Right then, my arms began to itch... again.  "Aw, damn it!  I wish this
would just stop!"  Another great effort was what it took to stop the annoying
problem.  Crash began to laugh at my wild motions and cursing as I struggled to
stop the itch.

"This is not funny!"

"It is from my view."

"Ahhhhhh.... that's better."

A contented look came across my face as I was finally free of the itch, for now
that is.

"Hey, man."

"What?" I asked Crash.

"Your nose..."

"I know, the tip is dark.  I've know for sometime, remember?"

"No, that's not it!  It's gone completely black on the end!"

"Huh!?!"

Back to the hallway mirror I went.  The tip was a flat black color that faded
away into the normal tan color of my skin about a third of the way up the nose.
I touched it with a hand and found it to feel very rough and have a strange
toughness to it, like it was a type of soft rubber, not skin.  "Damn, this is
starting to get too weird for me...AAAUUUGGGHHH!"  A wave of nausea hit just
then with the power of a brick wall and brought me to my knees.  Sweat began to
run like rivers all over my body.

"Dude, you OK?"

"Do... I... look... Ok?"  I finally managed to get out.

Crash rushed over and helped me to the bathroom upstairs.  I colapsed in front
of the toilet as the world spun like a merry-go-round gone mad.

"I'll be downstairs if you need me."

Crash left the bathroom as the spinning began to stop.  Still, I could only
manage to get on my hands and knees.  But, of course, right then the itching
started up.  In a mad fury, I tore off the bandages and flung them away while
yelling, "Screw the stitches!"  As I went to scratch bare skin, I stopped midway
because there was none to be found, only a black mass that was broken by
splotches of white.  Words froze in my mouth as I stared in disbelief at my
arms.  And then the pain started.  It came in waves that washed over me like the
ocean.  I wanted to scream, but couldn't, so I fell to my side and curled into a
ball that twitched in time to the waves of pain.  The sound of tearing fabric
coming from behind me cought my attention. I forced myself to look over my back
and saw a large mound growing underneath the back of my shorts that was begining
to strain the stitches and even the material itself.  The sound of more cloth
tearing made me look at my feet.  Around the toes, my socks had begun to swell
farther than they were ment to go.  I closed my eyes, not wanting to see
anymore.  I felt my shorts and socks give way at the same time and just fall off
my body.  I just kept thinking over and over, "This is just a dream."  My entire
body felt like it was being assalted by millions of pins, as was there a feeling
of tremendous pressure over my face and the top of my head.  The pain finally
made me open my eyes again, just in time to see the tips of my fingers split
open and the tips of  black claws begin to force their way out, merging with my
fingernails.  I watched with utter horror as black hair sprouted everywhere and
began to form thick clumps that, in time, grew themselves.  Slowly, the waves
slowed down and eventually died off.  I just stayed in my little ball on the
floor, in total shock.

     I don't know how long I laid there, but I finally forced myself to look in
the mirror.  A black and white shape with a muzzle stared back instead of my
normal reflection.  I reached out to touch it, but stopped short when I saw my
black, claw-tipped hand.  I saw something move in the background of the
reflection and jerked my head around to see what it was.  Connected to my back,
just above the butt, was a huge, fluffy black and white tail.  Slowly, I looked
over my entire body.  The calluses on my fingertips were now soft, black pads.
Overall, my fingers had shorten and fattened into a mixture of  hand and paw.
My feet now only had four large toes of about equal size.  But, what finally
sent me off the deep end was that I now reconized the pattern of white circular
splotches on black fur:  It was the pattern of the spotted skunk.  Before I even
realized it, I was screaming at the top of my lungs.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Is everything all right?"

"Oh, my God, Crash!"  I thought to myself.

"Uh, everything's just fine!"

"Obviously everything isn't, I'm goming up there."

I started to chant, "ohshitohshitohshitohshit," when he said that.  With inhuman
speed (well I am part skunk, now,) I ran into my bedroom, dove into bed, and
covered myself with the quilt.  Crash entered my room and saw the lump under the
covers.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong.  I'm fine.  You can go back to whatever you were just doing."
I prayed he wasn't going to do what I thought he was going to do.  He did:  He
yanked the quilt off me before I could react.  I could tell by the look on his
face that he was sorry he did.

"Uh, hi...," was all I could think of to say as I tried to cover at least the
lower half of my new body.  "I tried to warn you not to do it."

"I-I think I-I need a s-seat right this moment," Crash stammered out.  He
colapsed into my desk chair, eyelocked with my head.  "That really is you, isn't
it, Jus..."

I just nodded yes.

"Oh, my God."

I really didn't know who was going to have a nervous breakdown first, me or him.

"I'm sure that there is some rational explination for this.  This is just a bad
dream or something.  My roommate is not a giant skunk.  Everything is normal."
Crash left his seat and approached me with an outstreached hand.  "You're just a
figment."

He reach out with the notion that I didn't exist, but all that changed when his
hand embedded in my chest fur.  "Oh, man, that's real fur on a real body."

"Would you mind removing your hand?  That feels weird."

Now with both hands, Crash began to touch, pull, poke, and study every inch of
my upper-body. I swatted him away and yelled, "Will you stop that!"

"What the hell has happened to you!?!"

"Do you really think that I have an answer for this?"

Now Crash had me starting to pull on some arm fur with the hope that none of it
was real.  It was all quite connected to me and my nerves.  Reality hit hard
right then as a feeling of hoplessness set in.

"I'm scared, Crash...just what has happened to me?..." I asked as the tears
began to fill my eyes.

"It will turn out fine tomorrow, I'm sure the doctor can help. Just you see."

I still didn't feel any better as the tears began to flow freely.

"Dammit, pull yourself together, man."

Crash was right, this was not helping the situation at all.

"You're right to be scared, God knows I am.  But, losing our heads is not the
right way to get you normal again," he held onto my shoulders and looked me
straight in the eyes, "Now, just repeat after me, I am Justin Kavin."

"I am Justin Kavin."

"I am a human in harmony with the world."

"Iam a... wait, am I even human any more?"

"Good question.  Anyways, the point of this is that do you feel any better?"

"A little."

"Good, now try to get some sleep.  I know I can use some now after this."

Crash reached up and before I could stop him, he scratched behind one of my
ears.  The feelings that it gave off was that of an calming effect I had never
experieced in all my life.  To be frank, it felt wonderful.

"God, that feels so good..."

"Somehow I figured it would," Crash replied with a smug little smile on his
face.

He left right after that and I laid on my side in bed (I tried to lay on my
back, but my new tail kept getting in the way and making it very hard for me to
find even one comfortable postion to sleep in) , replaying the night over and
over in my head untill I eventually drifted off to sleep.