Metamorphosis

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed, into a duck. 

It wasn’t a breed of duck he recognised, he was feathered in all-white, with a yellow beak and feet. 

Gregor had barely had time to digest this new reality, when his phone rang. 

It was Nathan, from work. He pecked at the phone to answer. 

“Hello,” he said, or at least tried to say. The sound he actually made was closer to ‘quack’ than ‘hello’. 

“Boss, it’s me,” said Nathan. “Sorry to call you so early, but it’s a code red. We have detected an asteroid, directed straight at Earth, just three days’ away.“ 

“Quack,” said Gregor, and hung up. 

'What a day to turn into a duck’, Gregor thought. An asteroid about to crash into Earth, and the man in charge of asteroid prevention is, well, no longer a man. 

Gregor flapped his way out of bed. He had to find out how his new body worked and get it to the asteroid-detection centre as soon as possible, the very future of the world depended on it. 

He waddled slowly around the room, getting used to his legs and his upper appendages. He no longer had arms, he couldn’t lift things, press things, pull things, there was no way he was going to be able to drive to work. Not with these wings. 

Wings. 

He experimented with flapping them, and, when he was confident, took a leap forward and flapped frantically.  Success, he nearly avoided falling over. At the second attempt he didn’t fall at all, and by attempt seventeen he could fly. And wow, what an experience that was, the grace, the power, the freedom, just gliding through the air, free from the ground, cocking a snook at gravity. For all of three feet.  But still. 

He practiced until he had mastered flying around the room.   

Luckily, because it was summer, the window of his bedroom was open. Once he was confident after a number of trial flights, he flew through the open window and was off. 

Xxx 

Gregor had planned to follow his usual route to work, along the A-road , but once he was in the air, he realised he knew the way, thanks to some innate duck-sense that he acquired through his metamorphosis.  

En route, he realised that he had left without doing his ablutions, but, luckily, as a duck flying high in the air, he was free to do them as he flew, with scant regard to the people below.  It was an incredible feeling, a sense of fecal freedom he’d never thought possible.  

Because he could fly to work in a straight line, free from traffic, with no need to find a parking space, it took Gregor barely half the time of his usual commute. Soaring at an altitude of a hundred metres, he flew at great pace, nearly fifty miles per hour, at times keeping up with the traffic below, at other times soaring past it. 

As Gregor approached his office, he became aware of another problem, how to get into the building. He didn’t have his security pass, and even if he did, he lacked the opposable thumbs  with which to insert it door entry system.   

Luckily, because it was summer, the window of his office was open, and he just flew in. 

It was only once he’d arrived at work, that he realised the full extent of the difficultly he would face.  Not only did he lack hands with which to operate his computer, and the asteroid tracking equipment, he was no longer recognisable as Gregor, and could only speak in quacks. Everyone would just think that a random duck had flown in through the window.  At a time of national emergency, it seemed unlikely that they would treat such a duck kindly.  How was he supposed to lead a team in the repulsion of an asteroid if they tossed him out as unwanted waterfowl.  

However, it so happened that this duck was in luck. Stacey had left her desk unattended, and her computer switched on. With a few taps of his beak he was able to access the asteroid data on her computer.  As feared, the asteroid was heading straight towards Earth and was twice the size of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, big enough to wipe out all civilisation.  

With a few taps of the beak, Gregor was able to follow the trajectory of the asteroid as it approached Earth. It soon became apparent that there was an ideal point with which to target the asteroid with a missile, using the gravity of the moon which would hurl the deflected asteroid off into the safety of the void of space. 

Gregor explained his findings to his team. 

His team looked at him in amazement. All they could see and hear was a duck, sitting at Stacey’s desk, quacking frantically. 

“Will someone get that duck out of here,” said Nathan.  

A group of staff approached Gregor in ‘duck-grabbing’ poses. Gregor was unsure what to do, all he could think was to repeat his instructions.   

“The quacking’s starting to get on my tits,” said Nathan.  

However, Ella had a different viewpoint. 

“This may sound crazy,” she said. “But I think that duck is Gregor.” 

“That’s correct,” Gregor quacked. “I’ve turned into a duck overnight.” 

“He’s saying that he was turned into a duck overnight.” 

“You understand quacking?” said Nathan. 

“I was raised by ducks for a brief period in my childhood,” Ella said.  

“What else is he quacking about?” 

“He says that he’s calculated the opportunity of nudging the asteroid into the moon’s gravity, which will send it spiraling into space.” 

“Can you do that?” Nathan asked Gregor. 

“Quack,” said Gregor. 

“That’s a yes,” said Ella. 

“Talk us through it.” 

For the next two hours, Gregor talked his team through the calculations to disrupt the incoming asteroid, with Ella translating and Nathan inputting commands into the asteroid-deterrent system. 

It was difficult. Although Ella was fluent in duckspeak, having been raised by ducks for a brief period in her childhood, her knowledge of duck language was limited to words relating to waterways, food and the maintenance of feathers, and didn’t extend to complex mathematical calculations, gravity and asteroid-repulsion-technology. 

However, eventually the calculations were complete and the team was able to sit back and wait for the asteroid-repulsion-rocket to launch.  

With asteroid collision avoided, Gregor was finally able to relax, which is when the full reality of his situation hit him.  His life would never be the same again, even if Ella’s translation could enable him to remain at work.   

What was going to happen to him? Would it affect his love life, would he still be able to play darts? Most importantly, would this story become a series or is it just a one-off?