"Hi, is this Walter Reynolds?” A man's voice said.
Stuart was confused. Surely this was a mistake. The other person must have misdialed. Stuart didn't even know anyone by that name.
“Yeah it's me” Stuart replied. Wait, what? Why had he just said that? The words just escaped from his mouth. Before he could apologise for his mistake the other man on the line spoke:
“Great! I wasn't sure if this was your current number. Just stop changing the damn thing so often!” he mocked and Stuart found himself laughing.
“L-listen, I...” Stuart began but found his voice weak and the other man just cut him “Hey, don't forget to bring the beer. Matt and Ryan already brought the meat. See you soon!” and he hung up.
Stuart could not even react. He stood still, phone on his ear still beeping. What had just happened? What a bizarre situation! Stuart eventually put his phone in his pocket, still awestruck by the situation.
Oddly enough he figured a beer wouldn't be the worst thing in the world right now. Stuart hardly ever drank but the thought of getting beer was stuck on him. He moved like he was on auto-pilot, still wondering about the weird call and his even weirder response. Suddenly he notice he had walked into a convenience store. “Might as well get that beer” he thought as he walked inside.
Stuart immediately got to an aisle with a large amount of different brands of beer. Visually he knew a part of them from different advertisements but as he wondered what was the best one he was stumped. All beers tasted the same to him, in fact he didn't like any beer he had drank before. Stuart scratched his chin, noticing the rough hairs starting to grow. That was odd: he had just shaved that morning.
“I just gotta get home and relax” he thought as he walked down the alley, intended to just abandon the bizarre urge to buy beer. “That weird phone call sure messed with my head.” As he began to wonder who the caller had been he noticed a six pack of beer on a shelf. Just seeing it made Stuart feel happy. The red and yellow cans felt so familiar, which was strange as he had never even drank that brand before. Yet he could remember nights chugging that brand of beer, he could vividly remember the unique taste as well.
He grabbed four six-pack beers and got it in a cart and waited at the checkout line. “I'm being stupid. These are too many. I'm not going to drink all these anytime soon!” Stuart thought but immediately remembered that he and the guys could easily enough drink all those in an afternoon. “Wait, what guys...” he tried to recall but it was getting hard to think. He also felt very warm, sweat dripping down his face. Cleaning his brow with the back of his hand he found a bigger forehead than usual. Stuart also noticed that his arms were hairier than before. The confusing changes in appearance were beginning to concern Stuart but as he was called by the cashier the thoughts dropped.
The cashier was a pretty girl and Stuart was not subtle at checking her out as she scanned the beer packs, especially her perky breasts.
“Is it all?” she asked.
“Yeah. It is” Stuart answered, feeling as if he had swallowed a frog. His voice sounded hoarse. “Actually no, give me a pack of cigarettes” he added. Stuart had been paying so much attention to his now manlier voice that he had not even registered what he had asked for.
Stuart then grabbed his purchases and headed for his car noticing that there was a cooler on the passenger's seat. That was weird, Stuart did not own one much less keep one in his car. He opened it and amidst the ice there was a single can of beer, the same brand he had bought.
“What the...” Stuart said out loud. He grabbed the can and the cold touch made him grin. “One for the road won't hurt” he thought and cracked it open, savouring it.
As he drank his body hair grew thicker. On his once shaved chest and belly multiple hairs began to burst. His beard also grew as if he had not shaved for a week.
The can in his hand seemed to grow smaller but that was only because his hands grew in size, the skin of his palms roughening. The rest of his body expanded as well. Stuart's feet grew and the shoes became rather tight. His legs expanded as he grew a few inches in size and his belly grew larger with fat and muscle, becoming a visibly round and hard shape. His arms too thickened with mass, straining against his shirt and his nonexistent pecs inflated.
“Ahh! Tasted just right” he chuckled. Stuart then grabbed the packs he had just bought and put as many cans as he could into the cooler.
His stomach grumbled. Stuart felt stupid. He should have bought some food! But quickly he dismissed the idea remembering that Ryan and Matt had already bought the meat.
“Wait, what?” Again he was thinking about the phone call. Why couldn't he just forget about it? A part of him immediately scolded himself for that thought: he had already bought the beer he couldn't just leave the other guys hanging.
Stuart's hand was shaking. His thoughts were getting confusing. Immediately his hand traveled towards the pack of cigarettes he had just bought and quickly opened it, putting one on his lips before lighting it with a lighter he didn't even know he had.
He inhaled the smoke deeply. It felt weird at first, like it was something he was not used to or even supposed to do. But at the same time he could remember his friends and him smoking in high-school, in their private spot. How long had it been?
As new memories flooded, the smoke inside his car infiltrated the upholstery. What was clean became dusty and disorganised. Papers suddenly appeared as well as old empty cans of beer and empty food packs. The car aged as well, the modern dashboard changed to an old and beaten up. The car changed even further as the smoke infested the interior. The car began to get bigger and age further. Stuart was still finishing his cigarette when the vehicle he was in turned into an old pick up truck.
Stuart was still lost in his memories. Teachers bugging him with homework, his parents riling him because of his foul behaviour. For some reason they were calling him Walter. He turned his thoughts to happier times. Sneaking with his friends to see adult films, buying porn magazines. “The Internet makes shit too easy for kids these days” he thought, amused.
He recalled when he and his best friend Joe went to get their tattoos done. He had got a barbed wire tattoo around his bicep and he chuckled as he glanced at it.
Stuart's age increased as he recalled the far-away memories. His hair began to thin further until he was left with a horseshoe pattern, patches of grey hair growing on the remaining hair and his thickening beard. His expression also got brawnier as his skin lost its youthful looks. He had to be in his forties and his mind immediately thought of 41. His shoes morphed into work boots and his shirt into a stained wife-beater that could barely hide his beefy round gut. Even his trousers changed to accommodate his height of 6'3 but they also became very worn down with small rips.
Years of hard labour at the construction site had made him see what real work was, unlike those know-it-alls who prided themselves for dressing up and reading the most boring shit.
His phone began buzzing again. Picking it up, he noticed that it was Joe again.
“Where the fuck are you, Walter? Did you get the beer?”
The big man on the truck chuckled and his voice boomed: “Calm your tits a bit. Yeah I got it right here. I'm on my way. I'll be there in five.”
Walter threw the rest of the cigarette out of the window and started the old engine. He always looked forward to an afternoon with the guys.