It’s been a rough few weeks around my place with me being mostly angry at the situation especially with it happening at a time when I had finally corralled the muse and was writing a storm. The muse did peek her head out from under the bed where she was hiding away from the chaos and tapped me on the shoulder with this one, which has helped my mood for now.

“Three weeks of this shit,” John screamed at the walls of his small home. ‘How could any grown man not see he has a problem and continue to act like this?’ John thought as he looked down at the unconscious form of the man lying in the middle of his living room floor.

Noticing the unconscious man’s nose was bleeding John walked into the bathroom and came back with a wad of toilet paper. Kneeling down beside the unconscious man, John held the wad of paper to unconscious man’s nose, pinching his nose at the same time to try to staunch the flow of blood. “You can’t continue to do this,” John whispered to the unconscious form. This was only the last of many times the thirty year old man lying unconscious in the floor had gotten himself so drunk he began falling around breaking things until he passed out since he arrived three weeks ago.

While John had the occasional beer he was not into the stronger stuff. Not that he didn’t have any of that around the house, he actually had several bottles of various liquors or did have three weeks ago. He found the bottle of very expensive single malt scotch, that hadn’t had more than four shots removed from the bottle since John had bought it more than a year before, completely empty the second day after his house guest had arrived. That was the night the drunken fool has staggered into the small

computer desk John had set up for the grandchildren to use when they visited. The small Ikea desk was never meant to hold the weight of a two hundred pound man crashing into its side.

By the end of the first week John had discovered every bottle of liquor in his house empty and the large bowl on his night stand that he threw his change into void of all the silver coins it once held. If it had been anyone else John would have already thrown his house guest out on his ear, forcibly if necessary. John hated using force even more than how much he hated himself when he allowed himself to get angry. For John using force while angry was something he could never allow himself to ever do again.

The last time John had gotten angry was over twenty years ago when three street punks pulled knives tried to mug him and his friend. The only reason all three did not wind up in the hospital was John’s friend had stopped him from chasing down the last one when the punk ran after watching John tear though his two friends like some kind of animal.

John’s friend had seen John change when that happened. While John change was not drastic like an unmentioned green skinned musclebound comic book character, John did change. Most notably his eye color turned a demonic red while his skin also took on a reddish color making him look like he was badly sunburned, and whether it was due from massive amounts of adrenalin or some other change, John became inhumanly strong.

Finally getting the blood flow to stop from the unconscious man’s nose John grunted from the pain of rising up. It always hurt to get up form down so low, but then total knee replacement was the only way to fix that problem and to John that wasn’t an option as he had no idea what having the surgical implants in his body would do when he changed. The drunk laying in the floor had angered John so badly this time John had just caught himself and stopped the change.

After John had discovered how different he was he had went back home and lived with his grandmother for several years until her death while she taught him about himself and their family. John still didn’t know whether to believe the origin story of how they became different from normal people but the fact that he was different gave some credence to his grandmother’s story even though John had a hard time believing that angels and demons really existed. John often wondered if the angles and demons of the old tales were in reality aliens being explained in the only terms people had for creatures that unusual back then.

Magic on the other hand was indisputable, John having spent years learning and practicing spells and incantations under his grandmother’s tutelage that worked. It was during this time that his grandmother had shown him how to access his other form that he could change to. John cared even less for that form, it was so different from his true self, physically weaker but possessing much greater power magically.

Looking at the unconscious man on the floor John considered changing to that form now and doing something about the drinking problem. He had come to John with no place left to go, although John could easily see why no one would take him in or anyone that did would quickly throw him out. For John tossing him out wasn’t an option as the unconscious man on the floor was John’s son. Maybe if John had been around as the boy grew up he wouldn’t have turned into the jobless alcoholic that John found on his doorstep.

Although John never considered it his fault that he wasn’t around as he would have given anything to be there for the boy and his younger sister. It was their mother that drove him away with lies, heavy drinking and infidelity. Once John’s daughter was old enough to get a judge to allow her to decide which parent she would live with, she came to live with John. She was now married and had two beautiful kids which John adored. His son had refused to come live with his dad, not wanting to leave the freedom he had living with his mother who on the rare occasions she was home was usually drinking.

John knew if he could figure out a way to help the boy he could use his magical form to cast a spell to do what he wanted, it was figuring out the best thing to do under the circumstances that he found perplexing. He also feared using that form again, as his grandmother had warmed him to switch back and forth often as the from does not age unless it is being used and if there becomes too large a disparity in age he can become stuck in the form until it ages closer to the other. John knew there had to be close to forty years or more difference in his age to his magical form’s age. The possibility of becoming stuck was highly likely, although over the last five years or so the thought of being stuck in that body, a much younger body, was beginning to look more and more desirable.

John had a long talk with his son the next day when the thirty year old son was sober. Several days past and John thought his son was keeping his promise to stop drinking, although John found out the hard way the only reason he was staying sober was John had nothing alcoholic in the house to drink and his son had no money to buy it. This became apparent when John discovered money missing out of his wallet and his son smelling of alcohol once again.

It was two days later when John found himself losing his battle against his anger as the once again drunken son staggering around falling down drunk breaking a guitar John had bought for one of the granddaughters that he was teaching her how to play and if not for the heavy wooden case it was in, would have also broken the antique violin John’s grandmother had given him.

“I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!” john screamed at the drunkard that was making a bigger mess of everything that had fallen over while trying unsuccessfully to get back up.

The next morning John held the phone listening to it ring, “Hello?”

“Hi Sarah.”

“Who is this?”

John chose his words carefully, knowing that his daughter would not recognize his voice, “Do you remember asking your father about that girl in the picture with your great grandmother?” The phone was silent for a couple of minutes while Sarah tried to figure out what the person on the phone was talking about so John continued, “You dad then introduced you to her?”

Finally catching what the woman on the phone was talking about, Sarah thought back to the time she was a teen and found a picture of her great grandmother and some young girl in an old photo in a box in the attic. Showing the picture to her Dad, he had explained that the girl’s name was Rachael, then sat down and explained everything he knew about their family. Of course she hadn’t believed what he had said until after he introduced her to Rachael.

“Oh my god!” Sarah gasped, “Da… Rachael, is that you?”

“It’s me.”

“Oh my god, I thought you said…” Sarah hesitated, “Is Will still there? You didn’t change in front of him did you?”

“Um yeah about that, I really need you to come over. I can explain everything once you’re here. Oh and can you stop and pick up a pack of disposable diapers for a newborn on your way?”

Several hours later Sarah watched as Rachael pulled the now sleeping baby away from her breast, “I can’t believe that’s Will or you either. I mean you showed me Rachael years ago but wow, to see you breast feeding a baby is just unreal.”

“I never meant for that to happen or to turn him back so young,” Rachael explained. “I was just so angry and knew if he had the chance to grow up with a mother that wasn’t like yours unfortunately was, he could have turned out differently.”

“But becoming his mother?”

“Like I said it wasn’t my plan but that’s what I get for casting the spell on the fly like that.”

Sarah grinned, “Well if you are half as good of a mother as you were a father, you’ll be great. Now have you wiggled your nose and fixed everything else, like your driver’s license, birth certificates and that stuff?”

Rachael nodded, “Yes I think I got everything. Although between having to stop every two hours and feed this bottomless pit and the lack of sleep there may be somethings I could have missed. I’ll handle those as they pop up.”

“So what do I tell the girls about grandpa?”

“Tell them he finally retired and bought that sailboat he was always talking about and sailing to Fiji.” Rachael chuckled, “And I’m their Aunt Rachael who ran away from home after you left to live with dad.”

“So you sure you can’t change back?”

“I’m stuck like this,” Rachael replied, “and honestly it’s nice to be able to get up from a chair without the knees creaking.” Motioning at her breasts, “It’s going to take some time to get used to these though. I never knew how much they can get in the way.”

Sarah giggled, “It’s just like you girls with big boobs to complain about them.”