Before morphing, I took a last longing look at the equipment and clothes put at risk by a necessary and, hopefully, brief abandonment.
Not the most pleasant of feelings, transformation is something like free falling down a hole to the center of the earth at half the speed of light with every cell aching. A deep crunching sound fills the air as joints compress or elongate as well as reverse, according to the kind of animal you become. Near the end a red curtain blots out everything in a vertiginous haze. Fortunately, it’s over in a few seconds.
After things cleared and almost six feet closer to ground level, I shook out the new coat I’d acquired and tip-tapped across the street with a signature Yorkie prancing gait of unbridled confidence. The empty SUV and deserted front lawn basked in the bright noonday sun. At the front door, I checked to insure no one could see, and returned to human form long enough to ring the doorbell. The door opened to the sight of an alert, small dog sitting on his haunches. Two imploring black eyes peered from beneath a curly overhang of tan fur. A faint, under the breath, whimper accompanied by a cowering, whole body shiver completed the sales pitch. The large heavyset man dressed in a dark suit spent a few seconds assessing my proffer from a vantage point that seemed a mile in the air. Behind him, strung out down a long hallway, a half dozen scantily dressed young women turned resigned eyes my way in routine curiosity.