Arlen looked at himself in the mirror, as he did every day right after he showered and dried off.
"The same me again." he grumbled to himself. "The same stupid name, the same body, the same weird hair, the same face, the same dick." He looked at his penis in the mirror as he held it between two fingers. He let out a sigh. "Hell, it hardy gets used. Even I don't want much to do with it." he muttered as he started to get dressed for the work day.
Arlen had felt like an outsider since he was a child. His body had never felt right to him. It did what it was supposed to; it wasn't even especially bad looking but it felt like it belonged to somebody else. In short he felt as if he were an imposter living among a bunch of aliens. He had tried to do what was expected of him. He was an exceptional student during his school years; straight A s until he just gave up one day. He loved and craved the knowledge, but rebelled at the direction the educators were trying to steer him toward, conventionality. He had tried friendships, and had even dated a few times as he got older but his frank honesty and disinterest in the opposite sex ensured that he spent much of his time alone. He never dared to consider that he might be gay. That kind of behavior was more than frowned upon here and besides, he had only slightly more sexual interest in men than in women. His only long-term friend was someone just as off-centered and up-front as he was, but these days she lived over a thousand miles away and had no reason to return to this dead-end town.
Once he put his lunch together he locked up his house, climbed into his old pickup truck and started down the street on his way to the mill. It was late afternoon.
"Same stupid people," Arlen thought to himself as he watched the townspeople, "going about their business as if their lives really held any importance beyond feeding the system." He resented having to live this way, yet he blamed no one else for his troubles. He knew he was smart enough to have clawed his way into the waiting arms of corporate society had he wanted to. He also knew that money and power over others could not change the way he felt about the way things were.
The ten-hour work shift over, Arlen drove his truck back toward home. He stopped at the liquor store on the way and bought himself a bottle. It was Friday after all. He pulled up alongside his trailer and unlocked the door, entered it and started drinking. "Happy birthday, whatever you are." he said as he toasted himself in the mirror. He passed out in his chair.
Morning arrived and despite his hangover Arlen was determined to get out and have some breakfast for his birthday. His truck wouldn't start. "Dammit to hell!" he exclaimed as he climbed out of the cab and started to walk into town. He would deal with the truck later. He passed by his open mailbox and noticed an envelope sitting in it. There was no postage stamp and it was addressed only as "Arlen". He opened it and read the note inside.
"Happy birthday!" it read. "Today you get your wish. I just hope that what you have asked for all these years is what you really wanted. Your friend, Claire."
Arlen looked around, expecting to see her smiling face as she surprised him, but she wasn't there. Disappointed that Claire hadn't bothered to hand him the note in person, Arlen started once again walking toward town.
About two blocks from the diner he heard excited voices coming from the alley across the street. He walked over to investigate and saw three men. One wielded a baseball bat and the others carried makeshift clubs. They had cornered something. As he got closer he saw what they had caught; a reptile of some sort. It was the size of a cat and its body resembled an iguana. No its limbs were not lizard-like. Rather than being splayed out from its sides, the legs tucked in close to its body. One thing was certain, it was terrified. He only wondered for a second as to why he knew that as he approached the three men. He recognized one as a co-worker whom he had never liked. Derrick was a juvenile-minded bully and Arlen suspected him of being a borderline sociopath. The man had been in jail several times, usually on assault and battery charges.
"So Derrick, whatcha got there?" Arlen asked the one with the bat.
Derrick kept his eyes on the creature as he answered, "Just keep goin' Arlen. This thing's mine.
"I'll buy it from you." offered Arlen as he pulled some cash from his pocket. He disliked his fellow humans, but carried a soft spot for any critter in need.
"How much?" asked Derrick.
"Fifty bucks?" offered Arlen.
"Nope, for that much I'd rather stuff it and add it to my collection. It looks kinda cool." answered the man as he blocked the creature's exit with the bat as it tried to get past him.
Arlen counted his money. "All I have is seventy-eight dollars."
"Not enough!" replied Derrick as he brought his bat around for a good hard swing. He was planning to brain it. He figured that he could fix the damage later when he started the taxidermy.
Arlen caught the end of the bat in his hand. "It's going to have to be enough, asshole, you're not gonna kill that thing!" he said with a determined look in his eye. All eyes were upon him, including the creature. The creature now had the perfect opportunity to escape, and it had already proven that it could move fast, but it just stared at him like the three men facing him.
Derrick jerked the bat away from Arlen's grip just as another man clipped him in the knee with a piece of two-by-two. Arlen went to the ground; his knee badly bruised if not broken. Derrick took a swing at the animal and Arlen blocked the weapon with his hand. Bones in his hand shattered. The creature still didn't run. Instead it moved toward him.
"Get the hell out of here you stupid shit!" Arlen yelled at the reptile as he kicked at the three assailants. The reptile move closer to him almost as if it wished to aid him somehow, or was it seeking his aid?
Derrick tried for another swing. This time Arlen grabbed the animal with his good hand and pulled it to his body, covering it with his own as best he could.