I go downstairs and sit at the breakfast table, my long, thin legs tucked beneath the chair in my customary fashion. Mom is already in the kitchen, finishing her breakfast and about to head off to her job as a school teacher. Dad just left for his job at the architecture firm.
It is Christmas Break from college for me; it is January 2nd and I have three more weeks of break before I have to return to Boston University. As I start spreading creme cheese onto a bagel, Mom gets up to leave. "See you after school," she says. "Later," I say.
After she leaves, it's all quiet in the house. I finish my bagel and then walk upstairs to take a shower, stripping my clothes off as I go. I turn on the shower, let the water heat up for a minute and hop in.
The showerhead is a few inches two low for me, so I have to stoop my head and bend my knees slightly to shampoo my hair. The hot water feels so good on my skin that I linger in the shower for a long time until the bathroom is like a steam room. Suddenly I feel a sharp pain in my right hand.
"Ow!" I yell. I look down at my right hand, and gasp at what I see: the fingers are definitely shorter, maybe a quarter of an inch shorter. And the gap between my ring finger and my middle finger is definitely wider, fractionally wider. Nobody would notice, probably, but me, but I definitely notice.
I stumble out of the shower to look at myself in the mirror. Same lanky, muscled frame, same medium length curly hair, same huge size 15 feet, when I take a moment to look down. But I rub a circle on the mirror to get rid of the water vapor and hold up my hands in fascination. My left hand is bigger than my right hand, by a small amount. But that doesn't last long. A sharp pain in my left hand makes me jump, and I see before my eyes: bones grinding, the fingers are getting shorter.
Now I'm really freaked out. I consider calling 911, but I figure they'd be more likely to take me to some sort of mental ward--who ever heard of someones fingers just getting stubbier? On the other hand, maybe I am going crazy. I decide to get out my violin and practice a bit. It's hard to grip the bow correctly, and I keep messing up the intervals and fingerings. It's like I'm playing a whole different instrument.
Still, it more likely that I'm having some kind of a mental breakdown than that my hands are deforming before my eyes. I decide to just put it out of my mind, and I get in the car and drive to..