As Matt scrolled down the list of inanimate options, he started to become bored. It just went on and on. He had half a mind to just pick “Random” and be done with it.
That all changed when he saw the section titled “Office Supplies.” That, he realized, was what he wanted: not just to be an object for somebody else to use, but in the most boring, mundane place possible. That was true submission: not just to be used, not just to be an object no one would care about, but to be in a place where no one would even remember using him.
And he knew what he wanted to be and where. Matt was gay, but he wanted to be an object in his colleague Nina’s office. The two of them were friends, and the idea of her as a giant towering over him, not knowing he was anything more than a dull tool of office work, got him so excited. Matt tried thinking about the smallest, least important thing he could expect to see in an office, and he decided on becoming a paper clip. It was perfect. The Chronivac let him choose exactly what and where to be transformed, and all he had to do was hit Enter. He paused briefly, mostly out of excitement, and hit the button.
First he shrank. The chair he was sitting on grew around him, but he knew that it wasn’t the chair changing size. When he became only an inch or so tall, he realized he was stretching out too. He became longer and longer and thinner and thinner. He tried looking down to watch the changes but realized, to his shock, he couldn’t. In fact, he couldn’t move anything. He realized that he was turning into solid metal.
Fortunately, a moment later he was able to see everything, as he was forced to bend his head down and his legs up. At first it felt like he was being twisted around, but he knew it was just the normal shape of the paper clip.
Soon everything went dark, and Matt started to wonder what was going on. But a moment later the light came back. All Matt could see was the beige-gray of a small cardboard box, with an off-white ceiling and fluorescent lights far above him. On every side of him was thin metal, just like himself.
He had done it. He had fucking done it. Matt was now a paper clip.
He realized he forgot to specify how long he wanted to be a paper clip for.