SHAPE SHIFT
SHAPE SHIFT
(An unusual object you fancy, might not be what it appears to be
There was this little model elephant resting on the antique chest of drawers. I was looking around at all the framed old pictures on display, when I just happened to glance in its direction. I thought I saw it move. Well no, it wasn't really moving in the sense of changing its position, but it certainly seemed to be shrinking. I was astounded to see it reduce itself to about eighty percent of its former height, and perfectly in proportion too. I blinked a couple of times and decided my eyes must be deceiving me.
I was alone in an old second-hand shop at the time. The ancient owner had just gone into his tiny office to get some change for the banknote I'd given him. There was a pewter jug I'd seen in the window and fancied for some time. I'd finally decided to come in and buy it. I had just the right place for it back in my bachelor apartment. It would look good on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, next to the matching sugar bowl I'd picked up from somewhere, ages ago.
The owner shuffled back with the jug neatly wrapped, and gave it to me with my change. I thanked him, then mentioned the shrinking elephant and asked him the price. He looked surprised. No wonder, because when I looked back at where it was, it had vanished. In its place was a rough model of an old car. I just had to pick it up and examine it. It was made of some kind of baked brown clay and heavy, an unusual subject for such a material I thought, but otherwise it seemed perfectly normal. Then I suddenly noticed a painting on the other side of the shop, where I'd only glanced before. It was a picture of a very similar veteran car! And next to it was a painting of an elephant in exactly the same pose as the one I thought I'd seen on the chest of drawers. I put the object down and turned to the owner again, repeating my question about its price. He looked uneasy and muttered something about his eyesight not being what it was. Then he went back into his office and came out with a grimy ledger. Blowing the dust off it, he slowly flipped the pages until he came to the one he wanted.
I looked over his shoulder. The record he was looking at listed a miniature terracotta African idol. He tried to hold his thumb over it and the purchase price written at the end of the line, obviously hoping I hadn't seen it. However I had! He gave a couple of chesty coughs and then verbally doubled the value I'd seen written down. I was sufficiently curious though, and decided it was a reasonable price anyway, so I said I'd take it. The shop owner look rather relieved, and I got the impression that he'd have taken less. I handed over the exact price and waited while he wrapped the object up. To me it was an interesting model of an old car, and would look good on the top shelf of my desk back home.
Later, back home in my apartment, I opened up the brown paper wrapper. The model car had vanished. In its place, grinning at me tight-lipped, was a little brown idol. The expression on its face was not pleasant, something more like an evil grin. It was dressed in a short loin cloth and had what looked like tattoo marks all over its body, its face and its smooth bald head. Its arms were folded across its chest and its feet were bare. One big toe was missing. It was clearly the original African miniature referred to in the shop owner's ledger, but I would swear it had been an old car when he took it from me to be wrapped up. How could I have made a mistake like that? But then, I'd even thought it was an elephant before that!
I put it down on my desk and regarded it thoughtfully What should I do with it now, I wondered, put it on display somewhere or just place it in a drawer and forget it. Clearly though there was a strange mystery here, so I decided to keep it in a place where I could watch it. Perhaps I'd just imagined it had been an elephant and a car before. The pictures in that old shop could have influenced me. I looked around my room. There was a print of a sailing ship on one wall, a fully rigged, four masted, clipper no less. That would be a challenge for it.
On the adjacent wall was an oil painting of a plate with a bowl of fruit on it. I looked down at where I'd placed the idol and to my astonishment, there instead was a small plate, with a miniature bowl of fruit on it. I picked it up and turned it around and around. The bowl was stuck to the plate and the fruits were very hard and certainly joined to the inside of the bowl and each other. It became clear that he whole thing was made of brown clay and seemed to weigh about as much as the idol did before.
Thoroughly mystified, I left it on my desk and went into the kitchen to make myself a simple evening meal. When I returned the object was still there on the desk, unchanged; a model of a little bowl of ordinary looking fruit, It was perhaps slightly larger than I'd seen it before… unless I was mistaken. However its weight seemed to be about the same. I decided to try an experiment. On the wall in the kitchen was a picture of a kitten, a print of a live one playing with a ball of wool. I went out and brought it into my living room, and then I clipped it over the picture of the bowl of fruit. Let's see what it can do with that, I thought. When I turned around, there was the little brown idol back again on my desk, still grinning!
We regarded each other in silence. I remember considering wildly, if it might be possible to persuade it to speak. Perhaps I even remarked that highly illogical thought out loud. Whatever, I was really shocked when it seemed to shake its head from side to side. That really could have been my imagination or maybe it was the two, or was it three, glasses of wine I'd had with my supper?
I took a deep breath and gingerly picked up the little figure. It was heavy and slightly warm. Then I noticed something strange about its tattooed face. Its grinning lips seemed to be sewn together. The stitches looked real, made with what looked like a shiny green colored thread, embedded in the material from which the idol was molded. Something about their sinister appearance made me shudder, as I hastily put the idol back down on my desk again.
After that I wrote a few letters, glancing at the idol occasionally to see if it had again changed shape. It hadn't and it didn't so, eventually when I'd finished writing, I decided to leave it on my desk and turn in for the night. My bedroom adjoins the living room and I left the door open as usual.
Some time later, it must have been well after midnight, something disturbed me. Raising myself up slightly, I could see through the door into the other room. A half moon was shining through the main window in the living room and I could clearly see my desk, which looked the same as usual. Then I realized that the idol was not where I was sure I had definitely left it. It was certainly not now on the desk. I sat upright with a start and looked around the bedroom. Everything looked normal, until I glanced sideways and saw what I'd dreaded to see. There it was, propped close against my pillow, leaning forward slightly and grinning directly at me, with its arms folded. It didn't move, but I certainly did.
I leapt out of bed on the other side and switched on the twin bedside lamps. The idol’s eyes lit up and for several long moments we just stared at each other. Then I moistened my lips nervously and croaked, “What do you want with me?” The idol seemed to grin even wider. Then, to my horror, it slowly unfolded its right arm and raised it to point directly at me. Totally unnerved, I collapsed into my bedside chair with my heart pounding. I stayed there for quite some time, my eyes fixed on the idol, which still had its arm raised, pointing towards me.
Eventually, I got up slowly and tiptoed around the bed. Thankfully, the idol stayed exactly where it was, still pointing in the direction of the chair. For some unknown reason I felt relieved about that. I came around the other side of the bed and approached the little figure cautiously. Then I reached out and picked it up. I suddenly felt a strong urge to smash it against a wall. It seemed to squirm in my hand, but I didn't drop it.
Then before my eyes, as I held it, it changed. I was astonished to find myself holding a clay replica of an occupied bedroom chair. I held it closer to the bedside table lamp and examined it. The figure sitting on the chair was clearly meant to be me. I took it into the living room and switched on the bright ceiling lights. The detail of the model was remarkable, from the wickerwork of the chair to the effigy of me sitting on it. I closed my eyes and felt the object all over. I soon decided I couldn't be hallucinating. I could actually feel its shape, both the chair and the tiny figure of me in it. Or was my brain simply just interpreting the sensations in my fingers in such a way as to make me believe that? I opened my eyes again as I sensed the onset of a painful headache.
Dropping the object back on my desk I suddenly became very scared, what could the thing have done to me? There was a mirror by the door and, in what must have been a mindless panic, I rushed over to it dreading what I might see. To my relief, I saw only my normal reflection and nothing worse. Then, still doubting reality, I had to feel around my lips and teeth, just in case I was hallucinating, but they were as normal. Then another dreadful thought hit me, my visual and finger touch sensations could still be wrong. Something coming from the idol, perhaps some form of radiation, could be affecting my mind and changing the way it recognised and interpreted my nerve signals. Could I believe what I could see; even my own reflection?
I knew I had to destroy the evil thing before it was too late. Throwing the idol away would be useless, it would surely return. It had already demonstrated its powers of movement. Or had it? Had I really left it on my desk before turning in. Perhaps it'd somehow made me forget that I really had brought it into the bedroom, and then propped it up against my pillow? Did I only imagine it had unfolded its arms and responded to my question by pointing at me?
I went back to the desk and attempted to take hold of the object again, but my right hand was shaking uncontrollably. I finally managed to grasp it with both hands. Then I suddenly noticed that it had changed back to the idol again, but with an appalling difference. Horrified at what I saw I tried to cry out, but found I couldn't. The figure seemed to squirm again and I had to let it go. It dropped on to the desk and then bounced down on to the stone hearth of my fireplace, where it smashed into a hundred pieces.
I desperately wanted to return to the mirror, but must have fainted and collapsed before I could reach it. Later, when I recovered and partly returned to my senses, I noticed that my watch had stopped. It must have broken when I fell down. The time it indicated, compared with the clock on my desk, proved that at least fifteen minutes had passed. Getting back on my feet, I picked up some of the pieces of the idol that were scattered around the floor. From the shape of some of them, the idol must have been hollow in places. Then I found the head. It was intact but badly cracked around the mouth. To my relief I saw that it was just that of the African idol again and not what had made me drop it in terror before… an accurate likeness of me, but with my face tattooed and my lips firmly stitched and sealed together!
I fetched a hammer from my toolbox in the kitchen and broke the head into a dozen pieces. Inside it I discovered a small rusty metal ring with two rows of tiny green stones embedded along part of its edge. They must have been what I took for stitches holding the lips together. I went back in the kitchen and had a stiff brandy to relax me. Eventually I returned to my bed and fell into an uneasy, but fortunately dreamless, sleep.
The next morning after breakfast I brushed up and threw away all the clay fragments. I placed the ring in the drawer where I store my photographic equipment. There was an unexposed film in there, which I took out to use a few days later. When I eventually received the rejected negatives back from the developers, they were all mostly transparent. However, and only just visible, each of them displayed a ring of similar looking tiny black circles.
Uneasy about disposing of it safely, I left the ring in that drawer, where it still is today, but safely enclosed in a section of plumber's lead pipe. I regard it often and wonder, do we truly know what is real in this life and what is not? What if one's delicate senses, of touch and vision, become permanently distorted?
