063 - freak out

Taking his seat at his desk, Mitchell noticed something distinctly different.

At first, he thought that perhaps someone had rearranged the objects in his office. "Those fucking assholes," he muttered to himself. "How many times have I told them not to let people in here? This is MY office." But as he analyzed his belongings, he was struggling to find any noticeable differences.

Had someone touched his keyboard or mouse? Well, he hadn't taken extremely careful note of where they were placed upon his last leaving, but there was no discernible shift in placement. Everything was, roughly, where it should be.

Mitchell took a few more deep breaths in, contemplating this sensation of oddness he was feeling. The building was quiet, and his office itself gave off no sounds. Something was not right.

Perhaps it was his own perception, he realized. The way he was seated in his chair just didn't seem the same. The view out the window was a slightly different one than the view he had grown used to over all these years.

The light that poured in from the florescent tubes above seemed to be just a marginally different shade of white. And the feeling of his wrists against the desk as he typed--

Just then, Mitchell looked down at his wrists and his hands that were splayed out across his computer's keyboard. Only then did he realize that they were not his wrists and hands at all. They remained his body parts in the sense that he controlled them, but they were not the limbs that he had known as part of his body his entire life.

The limbs, in fact, were not those that might belong to any human being. As he examined them for a moment, Mitchell quickly realized what they were: bear paws. Upon further inspection of his body, he quickly surmised that he had possibly transformed into a bear at some point during his commute into the office.

A quick consultation with a mirror confirmed his speculation. Mitchell was now, in fact, a bear. His business suit was no longer fitting him well, and figuring bears were often seen without any clothes on at all, he decided to remove his clothing. It had, by now, been mostly torn to shreds, anyhow.

As he inspected his new bear body, the bleakness of the day that had previously beset him quickly washed away. "Holy shit, I'm a bear," he said to himself. Or, at least he thought he said to himself. Mitchell certainly understood himself, but he had never heard a bear speak before. He had only heard of bears roaring. Perhaps, to others, his speech was being heard as a series of roars.

Indeed, as if to confirm his suspicions, his secretary suddenly burst into his office. "Mister Connely, is everything all right? I heard some strange sou--" she began, before making eye contact with Mitchell the bear.

Without saying a word, she quickly slammed the door shut. A moment of silence briefly followed, before being interrupted by a loud shriek. There was a great deal of commotion outside his door following that. He heard someone ask her what was wrong, and Mitchell thought he heard her say, "A bear is in Mister Connely's office, and I think it has eaten him!"

Mitchell thought about trying to explain how he hadn't been eaten, how he had actually become the bear that she had seen. She was silly for being so mistaken, and so quick to jump to conclusions. But instead, he realized he suddenly had quite the hankering for some honey.

"Where can a bear get some motherfucking honey?" he asked out loud.