By GratDelay
Aaron
There was a package waiting for me when I got home. It was a green cube-shaped box, big enough to hold a football helmet, but heavier. Something shifted around in it when I picked it up off the floor in the hallway. I carried it inside and shouldered the door closed as I inspected it. There were no markings besides the shipping labels. Just a uniform plasticky green. The return label said it was from Toben.
Did he think I was stupid enough to open something from him? I decided to find a bigger container to seal it up in. But before I could even set it down, the bottom dropped out of it.
Or rather, it poured out, like a thick stream of green latex paint. Uh oh. It fell on my feet and spread surprisingly rapidly into a smooth round puddle about 3 feet across.
My instinct was to drop the box and get away from the puddle, but it was already too late for that. My hands were stuck to the sides of the box, and my feet were stuck to the floor. Things were happening all at once, so it was hard for me to process. As I was trying to shake the box loose, the paint-like stream falling between the box and the floor suddenly flared out horizontally into a thin sheet which curled abruptly around my legs and lower torso. As quickly as it moved, it was suddenly as hard as rock. The puddle made a solid base, keeping me from tipping over.