Michelle woke up and giggled. I rolled over to look at her quizzically. Interpreting my gaze correctly – as she always did – she said “I was dreaming I was a snail, slithering along on my belly, or foot, or whatever. It was funny.”
“Why funny?”
She thought. “I don’t know. It just was.”
“Yes, I suppose dreams have a logic of their own.”
“Yes, this one did. The memory’s fading now but I was going somewhere – very important – and… and… Something about a bird.”
Knowing Michelle’s dreams, I shook my head in mock disbelief. She smiled. I kissed her and got up. She smiled again and did the same. I was on my way to the door when I heard the crash and the curse.
“Help!”
I turned to look and saw she had no legs, and was lying on her belly on the floor. We both watched in horror as her lower torso extended out into a long formless blob, which then rolled up into a spiral. This hardened into a shell. By this time Michelle was crying torrents of tears. She was panicking, even hysterical. I didn’t know what to do, so I just knelt down beside her and put my arm around her shoulder. She leaned into me and put her arm around me. Then she looked at me face-to-face, just in time for me to watch two feelers-things grow out of her skull. These became about two feet long, with a small ball-like blob on the end. The change had taken five minutes from beginning to end and we had both been transfixed with what was happening – frozen like a rabbit in a car’s lights.
I then noticed that she had grown something else. A second pair of breasts underneath her normal pair. Michelle had always been very logical for a woman. This side of her nature now struggled to assert itself over the emotional side that was going berserk. “This is a dream,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “It must be.” “I hate to spoil the party, but I’m here as well.”
Illustration by Puppy
“You’re part of the dream. I’m dreaming you, and everything you say and do.”
“But I’m thinking, and feeling, and… therefore I am.”
Her feelers curved down towards me. “In my dream you are. That’s the sort of thing you’d say anyway.”
“I can’t win. Look, dreams normally last for a minute or two maximum, before going on to something else.” I looked at the bedside clock. “It’s been nearly ten minutes and nothing’s changed. Either this is one hell of a dream, or it’s real.”
She started crying again. “You’re right.” Even as a snail Michelle was a very practical woman. “I’ve been trying to deceive myself.” She ran her trembling hands over her shell and lower body. She was feeling, exploring, learning.
“I feel all this, from both sides. It’s like when I place my hand on my arm, I feel both from the hand and from the arm.” She touched the shell again. “I feel this thing, and also I feel it from the inside. I’m sure the shell doesn’t have nerves in it, but I feel it indirectly, like when I touch my tooth I feel it through the gum and jaw. I’m rambling. I’m sorry.” She buried her face in her hands and cried and cried.
Not knowing what to do, well who would? I just held her until she felt a little better. Then she lurched towards the door.
“Sorry. I thought of going to the bathroom and automatically took off.” We looked back. She had moved a few feet from the side of the bed, and left a slimy trail. Now away from the side of the bed I could her full form. She was a snail from her belly down, and human from, say, her belly button upwards. The two forms merged seamlessly. Her rows of breasts also seemed perfectly natural, not stitched on by a madman. Her top half rose at an angle from the large ‘foot’, I think it’s called, and her shell rose behind her, almost three feet across. A little bit of ‘blob’ stuck out at the back.
Then the word came to me. “Monopod,” I said aloud.
Michelle had always been quick. “Yes,” she said. “But why?”
“No idea. Anyway, you wanted to go to the bathroom.”
“OK. I’ll try.”
She slithered towards the door, the sides of her ‘foot’ behaving as the legs on a millipede, lifting up and down, cycling along the edge, and she moved forward. It all seemed so natural.
“Hey,” she said. “How did I learn to move like this?”
I shrugged. It was all beyond me. My girlfriend, and favourite woman, slithering over the floor. My brain gave up, and I sat down and cried – for her, and for me. She slithered over and put her arm around me, at the same time gently prodding my face with her feelers. When she realised what she was doing with them she withdrew. “Sorry, it was instinct.”
After a little bit I sobered up and we went to the bathroom. She stared at the toilet for a bit, and then slithered over the edge of and into the bath, where she emptied her bladder. It came from somewhere at the lower rear end of her ‘foot’. Then she seemed to become fully aware again, and looked around. There was a slimy trail everywhere she had been – across the carpet, over the edge of the bath, everywhere. As she was facing away from the taps, she reached behind her, put the bath plug in, and turned on the taps.
“I’m going to wash this off me. It’s like dirt. My real body is underneath this – all I have to do is wash it off!” Her voice was getting hysterical again, and tears were running down her cheeks and onto her breasts. Fortunately we have an old, wide, bath, and she managed to turn round and face the taps. When the water was about a foot deep she frantically turned off the water, got the soap and scrubbing brush, and scrubbed and washed and rubbed and soaped. This was useless, though. She was still half-snail. Dejectedly she dropped everything she held, lifted her head to look at me, and screamed.
Suddenly there was a slurping, ripping sound. It came from where her body became snail. This was happening all round her waist. The feelers on her head atrophied and fell off, all in a few seconds. Then she broke free, pushed the shell half away, and slid out of the snail bits, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Looking at me, she smiled broadly and said “It’s worked! I’m free, and back to normal.” Then she saw the look on my face.
She looked back, and saw what she’d pulled out of the snail half. Not legs, as she’d expected, but a golden fish tail. She screamed.
Then we woke up.
Back to John Malcolm story page