2 - That hot cheese hurts like hell.
- joneworlds@mailbox.org

We're in  the house living room,  wall-staring and
radio-listening.   Maybe it's  a basketball  game,
but  it's pretty  crackly so  I'm not  quite sure.
The door's  open for  the heat, and  Tinny's there
setting across from me.  When  a big old fly comes
buzzing  through,   she  snaps  out   that  tongue
almost 6  feet to bring  it in!  That  trick still
amazes me every time.

I'd say she's more frog than person by now in move
and look.  She hasn't lost an inch, but she hasn't
said a word  in almost six months,  near two years
since   the  frogness   started  setting   in.   A
five-foot  frog takes  some  getting  used to  for
sure, but  I bet you could  do it too. If  you had
to.  Sometimes I wonder how much she still gets of
what's going on.  Was that  a wink she just put to
me after she's swallowed?

Then Louis comes running out of the kitchen, teeth
clenched and  barred, eyes  wild, and a  whole hot
pizza in  his hands.  And he runs  over to  me and
starts  hitting  me  in  the  face  with  it,  and
screaming like  murder. So  I turtle  because it's
fresh  and that  hot cheese  hurts like  hell.  He
gets  done with  all that  pretty quick,  and then
he's  breaking  down  on  the  floor  bawling  and
apologizing. And I'm trying to tell him it's okay,
I'm fine,  I get it,  don't worry about  it.  They
say the wracks  are worst in the  first few months
of the turn.   It gets better.  If  you'll call it
that.  He's calming down.

When a  pepperoni falls off  my ear to  the floor,
some rat  shoots out from  the couch for  it.  She
doesn't get half a  bite, though. A black tentacle
that I  guess snuck  in the  open door,  grabs her
with a  squeak as  it pulls her  away and  out, as
quick as  you'll imagine.  So maybe  I'd better go
upstairs to wash.