Something shifted.

I and my new companion now stood in an alleyway between buildings. A dragon poked its head out of a dumpster, steam blowing out its nostrils like cigar smoke.

A few seconds ago, we had been on a street, I think, but then I saw a flash, and something jarred loose a memory of the crawlspace I and my mother had spent many hours sleeping in.

Home.

The image seemed to snap like a rubber band, throwing me into this alley with Gretchen Goose (5).

As I stared into those vacant blue ping pong balls the creature had for eyes, I felt struck with an irrational thought: This was home, that my crawl space and mama could be found right around the corner.

I felt urine leaving my body, but couldn't see any coming out. Apparently nobody peed in this universe.

Out of corners of my consciousness, I heard Dug complaining to someone about it, Doctor Newton saying that toilet training wasn't a priority, that he'd get me an appliance or training pads.

For a long time, I just stared at the strange green creature, examining the unusual carpet-like texturing of its beak and feet, its fake Mardi Gras feathers, watching its chest rising and falling in simulated breathing rhythms.

The bird radiated a feeling of intense loneliness and a need for acceptance. It made my stomach churn just thinking about it.

How could this nonliving thing be anyone's friend? How did it make me feel its emotions? I felt violated.

It craned its neck in puzzlement, waving its green mitten-like hand as if saying, `Earth to Hunter! Is anyone there?'

It then tried a different tack, pounding its feathery chest. "Me. Gretchen Goose. You?"

I hissed and clicked out my name.

The bird stiffened like a robot for a moment, staring vacantly into space.

It appeared to smile. "Did you say Sean Michael?"

I didn't understand. Gretchen Goose pointed to me. "You. Sean Micheal?"

"No," I hissed.

The bird slumped its shoulders, looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry. Could you please repeat it again?"

And then, when I didn't respond, "Me. Gretchen Goose. You?"

I repeated myself.

"Oh! Hassan Abdulaminajab! Yes?"

I just stared at her.

"It...sounds like you speak Arabic." Gretchen Goose said very slowly. "Would you like an Arabic translator?"

"What...Arabic?" I hissed.

"It is the language of many countries of the Middle East." She asked me if I spoke Arabic in Arabic.

I just shook my head. "English," I sighed.

Gretchen Goose looked super excited now. "Okay!"

She scrunched up her shoulders. "Is it okay if I call you Hassan Abdulaminajab?"

I sighed and nodded, mostly out of frustrated resignation.

"Right. Hassan. Can I call you that for short?"

I nodded, but I was frowning.

Gretchen Goose looked visibly relieved. "Okay. Hassan it is. But if you want to change your name at any time, just let me or any of my friends know, and we'll pass the word around immediately!"

I whipped my tail around, wanting nothing but to exit from this nightmare.

Gretchen Goose put her paws on her knees, stooping to my level. "So. Hassan. Welcome to Rosedale Square. Are you ready to have some fun?"

The bird radiated excitement and excessive joy, stirring in me the thrill of the hunt.

The invasion into my emotions became too much for me to bear all at once, so I lashed out, both from outrage and the thrill.

I leapt into the air, driving my head, fangs and claws into the creature's voluminous stomach area.

Instead of bursting open in a spray of blood, the meat of its round body merely rippled like a waterbed, and I found myself flying through a complicated string of numbers and symbols arranged in an elaborate spiderweb pattern extending to infinity in all directions.

I blinked, and my body slammed into a brownstone wall behind Gretchen's tail feathers.

Groaning, I shook myself and got up from the ground.

For some strange reason I had turned neon green.

I couldn't see much without a mirror, but a glance downwards told me I'd become a hybridized puppet of myself, green mitten hands and feathers.

Gretchen Goose whirled around clumsily, radiating a feeling of pain. "Ow! That hurt!"

Her body rippled all over, like a wave traveling through a floating water droplet, and her skeletal structure (or whatever could be described as such) suddenly underwent a startling metamorphosis.

The ping pong ball eyes disappeared into the creature's skull with a loud pop, the beak elongating into a long mosquito-like proboscis.

Her head squashed and stretched backwards in a long banana shape, the sides of her face spreading out like the head plate of a Triceratops.

Gretchen retained her fat belly, but her spongy orange legs bent and reshaped themselves into insectoid arrangements, useless wing arms turning into a pair of bug forelimbs, topped with functional looking green wings.

A long spiky tail burst from her rear end, curling scorpion-like behind her body.

Still bright green. Still carpet-like in texture. It looked like a grotesque puppet caricature of my grandmother.

"You hurt me, Hassan!" the creature hissed.

I swallowed hard, backing further into the alleyway.

"No!"

"Why did you hurt me? I was only trying to be your friend!"

[0000]

(1) Original version can be read at Chapter 128: Dream Neighborhood, Section III.